Jordan 'was chemical bomb target' (WMDs al-Qaeda)

BBC ^ | Saturday, 17 April, 2004, 16:40 GMT 17:40 UK | Staff

[piasa]

There was one reference to a gas.

[piasa]

Wednesday, April 2, 2003

Iraqis botch plot to poison U.S. troops
JORDAN ARRESTS AGENTS WHO ALLEGEDLY TRIED TO CONTAMINATE WATER TANK
By Alan Feuer
New York Times via MercuryNews.com, The Mercury News, http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/2003/04/02/news/world/5539107.htm.

AMMAN, Jordan - Jordanian authorities have arrested Iraqi agents in connection with a botched plot to poison the water supply that serves U.S. troops in the eastern desert near the border with Iraq, officials said Tuesday. The small group of men embarked on a scheme to poison a water tank that supplies hundreds of U.S. soldiers at a military base in Khao, which lies in an arid region of the eastern frontier near the industrial town of Zarqa. It was unclear how close they actually came to contaminating the water supply, but no one was sickened or injured, the officials said.

There was scant information about the plot Tuesday, although officials said it was connected to the expulsion late last month of three Iraqi diplomats, who were expelled from Jordan for undermining its national security. Officials at the Iraqi Embassy, which has been all but cut off from Baghdad because of the war, were not available for comment.

In a separate incident, Western diplomats said Tuesday that four other Iraqi men were detained last week in a bungled plan to set fire to a luxury hotel in Amman where many U.S. journalists and some U.S. military personnel are staying. The four, who are believed to be Iraqi intelligence officers, tried to burn down the top-floor executive lounge of the Grand Hyatt Amman Hotel with a primitive incendiary bomb, but the hotel's sprinkler system extinguished the flames....(/snip)

...MORE...

[Cindy]

Thanks Piasa for the link.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[DBrow]

My understanding of this idea is as follows:

The FBI crime lab assumed from the start that the WTC-I bomb was ammonium nitrate-fuel oil. So when they found traces of C doubly and triply bonded to N, they assumed that the "ANFO" bomb had been laced with NaCN or KCN. Later when the bomb assembly place was found, they realized that the explosive was a mix of urea nitrate and nitrourea, H2NCONHNO2 and CH5N2O-NO3 and that explained the CN residues. Not ANFO at all, they jumped to conclusions.

They then had to backtrack and cover, and in the confusion many sources still cite the KCN story.

It would be nice if the investigators of the Jordan incident would state what the "chemical capable of killing 20,000" is, or what they think it is.

[AD from SpringBay]

I wish ABCCBSCNNNBC and the major papers would quit talking about this story. We've been saturated with it over the weekend.

[Wolverine]

Current talk on WABC is that the bomb contained VX.

[DBrow]

Holy cats! That is truly bad news. Our media must make this data known, Dr. Rice and others should hit the air as soon as this is confirmed!

[Jeremiah Jr]

"The target of this bomb was the headquarters of the Intelligence Services," situated on a hill in the western suburb of Amman, he added.

One of the 'seven' hills of Amman...