Islamic State research into biological and chemical weapons uncovered on
seized laptop to target shopping centres and air-conditioning systems
ISIL terrorists in Syria and Iraq have carried out research into the
production of biological weapons, compiling a manual of how to make a device
and sharing a religious edict that sanctions the use of weapons of mass
destruction against civilians.
The computer seized from a Tunisian chemistry student contained a 19-page
manual to learn how to turn the bubonic plague into a weapon of war. The
text boasts that biological and chemical weapons are a highly effective
means of targeting enemy populations, according to the Arab television
channel al-Aan, which obtained the computer from a Syria rebel group.
“The advantages of biological weapons is the low cost and high rate of
casualties,” an extract of the closely-typed document shown on the channel
said. “There are many methods to spread the biological or chemical
agents in a way to impact the biggest number of people. Air, main water
supplies, food. The most dangerous is through the air.”
The manual explores a variety of means to spread “chemical or biological
agent” over a wide area – including rockets and missiles, suicide missions
in cars, and contamination of air-conditioning systems.
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The laptop revelations came as Islamic State issued more recordings of
massacres by it forces including the beheading of a captured Kurdish
peshmerga soldier. An Islamic State video entitled “A message in blood
to the leaders of the American-Kurdish alliance,” showed 15 peshmerga
dressed orange jumpsuits that it warned would be killed in retaliation for
Kurdish support for US intervention in Iraq.
The UN said yesterday that three million people had been made refugees from
the conflict in Syria and Iraq.
The Syrian civil war has seen as many as seven documented chemical weapons
attacks, involving the use of sarin, chlorine and ammonia gas against
residential areas. Investigations by human rights groups have found that the
Syrian regime had deployed weapons from the country’s stockpile.
However, experts have warned that the group of extremist Islamist groups makes
a chemical weapons attack by terrorists highly likely. Hamish de
Bretton-Gordon, a former commander of British nuclear, biological and
chemical weapons protection forces, said that the Islamic State has shown
interest in using chemical weapons already.
That the group had sought a fatwa from an Islamic scholar, which was also on
the computer, shows Islamic State had, unlike al-Qaeda, decided that
chemical weapons were a legitimate option on the battlefield.
“Al-Qaeda thought that biological weapons were beyond the pale but Islamic
State don’t have similar quandaries, especially since the Assad regime has
used them and people have seen how effective they are,” he said.
“It is difficult – but not impossible – to get people to ingest biological
spores, while the chemical stuff that Islamic State mentions shows they have
the intent to co-opt these weapons.”
Islamic State seized control of al-Muthanna, the storage facility that houses
Iraq’s stockpile of chemical weapons, in July.
Mr Gordon subsequently warned the material at the facility could be used by
Islamic State to make an improvised chemical weapon. The laptop shows it is
actively seeking ways of making chemical and biological bombs.
Al-Aan said the owner of the manual, which it only identified as a Tunisian
called Mohammad, had studied physics and chemistry at a university in his
homeland until 2011.
The documents recommended targeting confined spaces with large gatherings of
people, including underground train systems, football stadiums or shopping
complexes.
A separate file on the laptop contained a letter from an Islamic religious
expert, Sheikh Nasir al-Fahd, who is currently languishing in a Saudi
Arabian detention centre for terrorist sympathisers. The edict, or fatwa,
tells believers that Muslim fighters can use chemical or biological weapons
against the “infidel”.
“Looking to the American aggression against the Muslim people and their lands
during the past decades, you will conclude that it’s permissible (to attack
with weapons of mass destruction) under the
principal of reciprocity. Some brothers calculate the number of Muslim
casualties and they found it more than 10 millions killed by America,
directly and indirectly, the lands which were burnt by their bombs are
uncountable,” the fatwa said.
By Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent
