Asian Nations Under Threat Of Chemical Attacks

Asian nations under threat of chemical attacks: Experts

KUALA LUMPUR: -- Asian governments were warned on Monday to prepare for the possibility of deadly chemical attacks by terrorist groups such as the al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah (JI).

The warning came at a conference here attended by more than 70 chemical weapons experts, security officials and policy makers from 12 countries including Japan, China, Canada, the United States, Singapore and Thailand.

"There is a growing concern of the potential threat posed by chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons (CBRN) in the hands of terrorists," said Zainal Abidin Zain, director-general of the Southeast Asia Regional Centre for Counter-terrorism.

"Among all of the CBRN weapons, chemical weapons are potentially the easiest to be manufactured.

"It is possible to harvest deadly pathogens from nature with unsophisticated equipment and limited expertise," he said, pointing to the sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway by a religious cult in 1995 which killed 12 people and made 6,000 ill.

Shinsuke Shimizu, director for International Counter-terrorism with Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said chemical attacks did not require sophisticated dispersal mechanisms to cause panic among citizens.

Other advantages of such attacks for terrorists were that chemical agents were not easily detectable by traditional security measures and there was a time lag between the release of the bio-agent and the effect, he said.

--Times of India 2004-07-05