France:  Police Find Protective Suit With Paris Chemical Suspects

French police seized a protective chemical suit in a Monday raid that officials said may have prevented a holiday chemical attack on Paris (see GSN, Dec. 17).

The arrested three men and a woman and searched an apartment and a basement storage unit in the heavily Muslim suburb of La Courneuve, outside Paris, the Los Angeles Times reported today.

Authorities discovered “two 13-kilo (29-pound) containers, empty, two vials of liquid that is now under analysis, and a military suit for nuclear, bacteriological and chemical protection,” French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said (Sebastian Rotella, Los Angeles Times, Dec. 18).  The vials have been taken to Le Bouchet military laboratory in the Essonne region south of Paris.

One of the vials was labeled and the results of analyses to determine whether the contents correspond to the label were expected today.  Interior Ministry experts cited by Liberation said the labeled product is generally used for engraving electronic circuits — some of which were found in the La Courneuve apartment — but that it can be used as part of an explosive mixture.  Making a bomb from the material is impractical, according to Liberation sources, because the chemical would explode immediately when mixed with the other necessary ingredients. 

Officials identified one of the men arrested, 29-year-old Mirwani ben Ahmed, as a suspect in an attempt to bomb Strasbourg Cathedral in 2000.  Ben Ahmed and one of the other men arrested yesterday are said to be Algerian, as is the woman, who Liberation reported is Ben Ahmed’s wife.  The other man is reportedly Moroccan.

Ben Ahmed has also been questioned in an investigation into Chechen terrorism that French authorities opened last month, and French intelligence believes that, while in al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, he studied theology, soldiering and bomb-making.  One investigator cited by Liberation said the suspect has lived successively in Afghanistan, Germany, France, Georgia, Chechnya and England (Patricia Tourancheau, Liberation, Dec. 18, GSN translation).

The suspects are also linked to Rabah Kadre, who was arrested for planning a chemical attack in London, Sarkozy said.

“With these four (suspects) here, it was better to arrest them before rather than after,” Sarkozy said.  “When you find people with this kind of material, there is not doubt that arresting them was the right move,” he added (Rotella, Los Angeles Times).

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France:  Paris Police Thwart Christmas Chemical Attack

French counterintelligence officials Monday arrested three men who were allegedly planning a chemical attack on Paris, the New York Times reported today.

The suspects, who are thought to have spent time in Afghanistan and Chechnya, were arrested in a public housing project in a Paris suburb and were apparently found with chemicals, $5,000 in cash, a computer and Islamic propaganda, according to officials.

French anti-terrorist judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere — who has broad powers to investigate and detain suspects — ordered the arrests.  The men are suspected of having sympathies for radical militant Islamic causes, the Times reported (Associated Press/New York Times, Dec. 17).

The suspects — an Algerian, a Franco-Algerian and a Moroccan — had planned an attack on Christmas, and were arrested with components necessary to build chemical weapons, News24 reported.  Officials seized liquid and powder chemicals as well as canisters to mix the substances (News24.com, Dec. 17)

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CWC:  Thailand Ratifies Treaty

Thailand recently ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention and deposited its instrument of ratification with the United Nations Dec. 10, becoming the 148^th country to do so (see GSN, Oct. 3).  Thailand will become an official party to the convention on Jan. 9, 2003 (Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons release, Dec. 13).

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United States:  Technician Drops Sarin Vials at Umatilla

Diluted sarin nerve agent spilled at the U.S. Army’s Umatilla Chemical Depot in Oregon Dec. 3 when a laboratory technician dropped several small glass vials that shattered on the floor, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 3).

Three employees at the laboratory promptly put on gas masks and poured water and bleach on the floor to further dilute the agent, which already had been diluted 500-to-1 in rubbing alcohol, according to AP.

“It’s diluted enough that you would not normally have an exposure from it,” Army spokesman Jim Hackett said.  “We would say that’s a minor lab incident.”

No one was hurt, and medical tests indicated that there was no sarin in the workers’ blood, Hackett said.  The technician dropped 18 thumb-sized vials, breaking 13, he added.

The Army informed authorities in surrounding communities of the incident, AP reported (see GSN, April 10; Andrew Kramer, Associated Press, Dec. 12).

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Czech Response:  Ministry Develops Plan for Anti-Chemical Unit

Czech Defense Minister Jaroslav Tvrdik has said that Monday he will announce a plan to keep the Czech anti-chemical weapons unit in Kuwait, CTK National News Wire reported yesterday (see GSN, Nov. 13).

Officials previously had proposed to withdraw 200 of the 250 anti-chemical warfare troops — which have been deployed in Kuwait for nearly a year — to save funds, according to CTK (see GSN, Jan 9).  Reports surfaced last month that Kuwait had offered to pay to keep the full unit in place, but such reports have not been confirmed, the newswire reported.

“On Monday I will present to the government a solution I have accepted,” Tvrdik said yesterday.

The full unit is expected to stay in Kuwait, according to CTK.

Meanwhile, morale has weakened within the unit, CTK reported.  Tensions have arisen between the commander of the health section of the troops and his subordinate, and one logistics major recently caused a theft scandal, according to the newswire (CTK National News Wire, Dec. 12).

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Iraq:  Al-Qaeda Reportedly Received Chemical Weapons

A report, circulating in the U.S. intelligence community, says Islamic extremists allied with the al-Qaeda terrorist organization received chemical weapons, possibly VX nerve gas, in a transfer that took place in Iraq during the last two months, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, Nov. 4).

The intelligence report suggests that the chemical agent was smuggled out of Iraq through Turkey, possibly last month (Barton Gellman, Washington Post, Dec. 12).

Senior U.S. officials, however, sought to play down the report, with one official cited by CNN saying the Post story was “far too conclusive-sounding” (John King, CNN.com, Dec. 12).

The report could be used by the Bush administration to refute Iraq’s recent declaration that it had destroyed all of its chemical weapons, but information on the intelligence report was leaked without White House consent, the Post reported.

The source of the intelligence report gave the information credibility in the eyes of U.S. officials, a U.S. source said.

“The way we gleaned the information makes us feel confident it is accurate,” the official said, “I throw about 99 percent of the spot reports away when I look at them.  I didn’t throw this one away.”

The report is not backed up with hard evidence, officials cautioned.

Another official said that the government is concerned with the information and is “ramping up opportunities to collect more, to figure out what would be the routes, where would they be taking the material, how would they deploy it, how are they transporting it, what are the personnel.”

“We’re not just sitting back and waiting for something to happen,” the official added.

The government generally held back on official comments regarding the report.

“We are concerned because of al-Qaeda’s interest in obtaining and using weapons of mass destruction, including chemical, and we continue to seek evidence and intelligence information,” Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, said.

“Have they obtained chemical weapons?” Johndroe asked. “I do not have any hard, concrete evidence that they have,” he said (Gellman, Washington Post).

“Some of this stuff turns out to be right, and a lot of it turns out to be wrong or exaggerated or wishful thinking on the part of those doing the talking,” the official quoted by CNN said.

Congressional sources who usually receive sensitive intelligence briefings have said they have seen no evidence of a working relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda (King, CNN.com).

Baghdad Received Chemical Antidote

Meanwhile, the Post also reported today that Iraq imported more than 2 million vials of atropine — which could be used to inoculate soldiers against chemical warfare agents — with the permission of U.S. officials, and has ordered 1.5 million additional doses (see GSN, Nov. 13)

According to the Post report, which cited U.N. sources and documents, French, Russian and Italian companies signed firve or more contracts between 1997 and November 2001 through the U.N. oil-for-food program for the nerve agent antidote.

It was unclear why the United States has not expressed concern about the imports until now.

“I honestly don’t know the answer,” said John Negroponte, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (Colum Lynch, Washington Post, Dec. 12).

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