JORDAN FOILS HUGE CHEMICAL ATTACK!

Sky News ^ | 4/26/04

[areafiftyone]

Jordan has foiled a chemical attack, linked to al Qaeda, involving trucks loaded with 20 tons of explosives that could have killed 80,000 people, according to security officials.

More to follow...

[Angelus Errare]

Here's my take on it, for whatever it's worth:

http://regnumcrucis.blogspot.com/2004_04_25_regnumcrucis_archive.html#108301312374985786

From the looks of things, the sulfuric acid is the blister agent in question being referred to, but that still doesn't identify the nerve agent that was also allegedly involved here. Reuters sez that Jayyousi is an Afghan alumni who worked for Zarqawi back in the good old days in Afghanistan and worked with him again in Iraq to plot the overthrow of the Hashemites. My guess is that Jayyousi and the other Jordanians in on the plot are probably either members of Zarqawi's Bani Hassan tribe or else Jordanian Palestinians who hate their generally sane and pro-American Hashemite monarchy.

The most ominous thing is that Jayyousi and another Zarqawi lieutenant set up a plant near the Syrian border to produce all of these chemicals according to the Reuters account. Fortunately, the city where the plant was located, Irbid, is in Jordanian territory and hence has probably already been taken down.

[Boot Hill]

"If that is correct then Zarqawi has his hands on chemical weapons and has them in Iraq."

Possibly, but not necessarily. The other likelihood is that he simply has deployment authority over the Iraqi WMD stockpiles that were hidden (read: "forward based") in Syria.

--Boot Hill

[Eurotwit]

Well for whatever it is worth (probably not much) I have suggested that the nerve agent might be some form of insecticide.

[Angelus Errare]

I read that but don't know enough about chemistry to comment. Doesn't insecticide burn fairly easily?

[Brandon]

But that's impossible! There was no connection between Saddam and al Qaeda! The liberals told me so, and they would never lie!

[Eurotwit]

Don't get technical on me and expose me as a total fool :-)

I am obviously just speculating, putting up an alternative hypothesis to it neccessarily being from Saddam's old arsenal.

It might very well be from Saddam's missing stock. Who knows? I just doubt it.

But, if it was from Saddams arsenal, in that case why didn't they use mustard gas instead of sulfuric acid as a blister agent? Perhaps sulfuric acid tolerates heat better?

Oh, well these are just useless speculations since I just barely passed organic chemistry 101 :-)

I guess my strongest reason to doubt it being anything like Vx are the tidbits from the CNN story regarding the views of US intelligence analysts.

Who knows.

Anyways, I appreciated your account and thoughts from the link.

What is also interesting from the story is that

[TexKat]

Jordanian Militants Shown Confessing on State TV

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1124800/posts?page=16

In a videotape shown on Jordanian TV, Hussein Sharif said he was recruited as a suicide bomber.

[idkfa]

Just heard on CNN that the possible death toll could have been in the "thousands, even higher than the WTC."

[DonaldDuke]

but that still doesn't identify the nerve agent that was also allegedly involved here

Sulfur is one of the two components in binary VX.

[kinghorse]

looks like a jordanian soap opera actor to me. mossad gin up this clown? suicide bomber? ok.

[kaehurowing]

He's Omar Sharif's brother.

[kinghorse]

not shi. you don't say. well there you go.

;)

[thoughtomator]

Big time... for a whole week he was the only one saying anything near the truth of an event of monumental significance. I had not heard of Loftus before, but he's got some credibility with me now.

[CyberAnt]

"stuff has it own signature"

Yes, I've heard that too - from some of the experts on FOX.