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They gassed Roman soldiers with toxic fumes 2,000 years ago, researchers have discovered. Archeologists have found the oldest evidence of chemical warfare yet after studying the bodies of 20 Roman soldiers' found underground in Syria 70 years ago. Archeologists have found the oldest evidence of chemical warfare after studying the bodies of 20 Roman soldiers Clues left at the scene revealed the Persians were lying in wait as the Romans dug a tunnel during a siege – then pumped in toxic gas – produced by sulphur crystals and bitumen – to kill all the Romans in minutes. Dr Simon James,...

Sick Rams Used as Ancient Bioweapons Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News Once, a Weapon Nov. 28, 2007 -- Infected rams and donkeys were the earliest bioweapons, according to a new study which dates the use of biological warfare back more than 3,300 years. According to a review published in the Journal of Medical Hypotheses, two ancient populations, the Arzawans and the Hittites, engaged "in mutual use of contaminated animals" during the 1320-1318 B.C. Anatolian war. "The animals were carriers of Francisella tularensis, the causative agent of tularemia," author Siro Trevisanato, a molecular biologist based in Oakville, Ontario, Canada told Discovery News....

Roman soldiers defending a Middle Eastern garrison from attack nearly 2,000 years ago met the horrors of war in a most unusual place. Inside a cramped tunnel beneath the site’s massive front wall, enemy fighters stacked up nearly two dozen dead or dying Romans and set them on fire, using substances that gave off toxic fumes and drove away Roman warriors just outside the tunnel. The attackers, members of Persia’s Sasanian culture that held sway over much of the region in and around the Middle East from the third to the seventh centuries, adopted a brutally ingenious method for penetrating...

The following ARE exerpts... "...From Hercules' poisoned arrows to early germ warfare and attacks with scorpion bombs and red-hot sand, she contends, cultures around the world have grappled with the revulsion and justification of using these unconventional weapons ever since they began creating their own myths and recording their histories. Mayor has compiled a slew of examples in her new book, "Greek Fire, Poison Arrows & Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World" (Overlook Press)..." "...The early dilemmas posed in mythic form would be recorded eventually in the annals of historians as combatants put their growing knowledge...

If you are under Roman siege in the middle of a desert, a scorpion bomb seems like a very good idea. Collect a bunch of lethal scorpions and, very carefully, seal them in clay pots. Hurl the pots at the attackers as needed. That's exactly what the defenders of Hatra, just south of Mosul in today's Iraq, did in 198 AD. The siege was lifted in 20 days. As Adrienne Mayor writes in her intriguing book Greek Fire, Poison Arrows and Scorpion Bombs, scorpions weren't the only stinging animals pressed into service in the ancient world. A clay pot full...

Members of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps advance through a cloud of smoke during a gas mask drill, 1942. U.S. Army Nurse Corps members in formation. World War II Army Nurses onning their gas masks. Mary Brown, Nurse and Soldier

NBC reporter Dana Lewis reporting live video from newly discovered PLO terrorist training camp that was discovered in Iraq. It has obstacle course, shooting range, pretty much looks like one of the familiar AlQaeda terrorist training camps. Dana Lewis also reports that this camp is close to the infamous pesticide site and that there are some of the same French pesticide drums (not the others suspected of containing the CW "Cocktail" mixture) at the PLO camp along with gas masks and chemical suits. They're not sure what to make of it and the officer in charge was hesitant to say...

LONDON, (CAIS) -- Almost 2,000 years ago, 19 Roman soldiers rushed into a cramped underground tunnel, sent to defend the Roman-occupied Syrian city of Dura-Europos from an army of Persians digging to undermine the city's mudbrick walls. But instead of Persian soldiers, the Romans met with a wall of noxious black smoke that turned to acid in their lungs. Their crystal-pummelled swords were no match for this weapon; the Romans choked and died in moments, many with their last pay of coins still slung in purses on their belts. Nearby, a Persian soldier — perhaps the one who started the...

None of the men of the 1st Battalion of the Royal Hampshires was surprised that the fight would be tough. As they doggedly advanced up 'Gold' beach on D-Day, every man knew that surviving the murderous criss-cross of machine-gun fire would demand a miracle. The village of Le Hamel, although no more than a few hundred yards beyond the surf, never seemed to get any closer. The bullets mercilessly cut down their commanding officer as well as several middle-ranking officers, and as the day wore on, it looked as if the entire battalion would be slaughtered on the beach. ...........................................................

KABUL - More than 80 schoolgirls have fallen ill in three cases of mass sickness over the past week in northern Afghanistan, raising fears that militants who oppose education for girls are using poison to scare them away from school. The latest case occurred Sunday when 13 girls became sick at school, Kunduz provincial spokesman Mahbobullah Sayedi said. Another 47 complained of dizziness and nausea on Saturday, and 23 got sick last Wednesday. All complained of a strange smell in class before they fell ill. (snip) The Health Ministry in Kunduz said blood samples were inconclusive and were being sent...

At least 84 Afghan Schoolgirls Suffer Headaches and Vomiting. CHARIKAR, Afghanistan - At least 84 Afghan schoolgirls were admitted to a hospital Tuesday for headaches and vomiting in the third apparent poison attack on a girls school in as many weeks, officials and doctors said. The students were lining up outside their school in northeastern Afghanistan on Tuesday morning when a strange odor filled the school yard, and one girl collapsed, said the school's principal, who was herself in a hospital bed gasping for breath as she described the event. "We took her inside and splashed water on her face,"...

Note: The following text is a quote: Ali Al-Marri Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy to Provide Material Support to Al-Qaeda Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, 43, a dual national of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, has pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to provide material support to al-Qaeda. Al-Marri entered his guilty plea at a hearing this afternoon before Judge Michael M. Mihm in U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois. In so doing, al-Marri admitted that he agreed with others to provide material support or resources to al-Qaeda in the form of personnel, including himself, to work under al-Qaeda’s...

Israel on Sunday began distributing new gas masks for civilians to use in a possible chemical or biological attack, the army said. "The civil defence has asked the Israeli postal service to begin distributing gas masks on an experimental basis to the residents of Or Yehuda," a military spokesman told AFP, referring to an area near Tel Aviv. "Gradually, based on the lessons learned in this operation and in accordance with the Israeli government's decision, the distribution will be extended to the entire population," he added. The government decided on January 5 to distribute some eight million new gas masks,...

Taleban using white phosphorus, some of it made in Britain An eight-year-old girl, injured during an airstrike in the Afghan village of Garni in western Farah province, recovering in hospital in Herat city Michael Evans, Defence Editor Taleban fighters have been using deadly white phosphorus munitions, some of them manufactured in Britain, to attack Western forces in Afghanistan, according to previously classified United States documents released yesterday. White phosphorus, which can burn its victims down to the bone, has been found in improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in regions across Afghanistan including in the south, where British troops are based. It...

Military personnel exposed to chemical warfare agents should be "reassured".Chemicals such as as sarin were tested on military personnel at Porton Down.Chris Ison/PA Archive/PA Photos The first ever studies of veterans exposed to chemical warfare agents in controversial experiments at the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) Porton Down laboratory has found little evidence that they suffered any long-term health effects, despite a small increase in mortality in the test group.Nearly 500 different chemicals, including nerve agents such as sarin and blistering agents such as sulphur mustard (mustard gas), were tested on military personnel at the Porton Down laboratory near Salisbury...

As if he doesn't have enough domestic issues to deal with, Barack Obama is being forced to confront the escalating drugs war in Mexico that threatens to spill across the US border. In interviews with regional newspapers yesterday, the President revealed that he had contemplated the idea of sending an armed American force to patrol the border. "We're going to examine whether and if National Guard deployments would make sense and under what circumstances they would make sense," said Obama, who also praised Mexico's President Felipe Calderon for "taking some extraordinary risks under extraordinary pressure to deal with the drug...

Nuclear and biological terrorism is the emerging threat the next US President should focus on, the US security chief has told Sky News. In an exclusive interview, homeland security secretary Michael Chertoff said sources of radioactive and biological materials must be properly secured "at all costs". He warned terrorists are actively seeking to acquire such materials. Mr Chertoff said he did not think a weapon of mass destruction, like a biological or nuclear bomb, was a danger that could be just months away. But he warned: "It may be years away and we can't afford to waste this time waiting...

HOUMA, LA (WAFB) - Houma police officers and Terrebonne Parish sheriff's deputies say an attractive woman named Patches has been arrested after her "calogne samples" made at least two men pass out. One of the incidents prompted a statewide alert to Louisiana law enforcement agencies. The first complaint happened in early June. Police say an 18-year-old man says he was leaving a Houma restaurant at lunchtime when he was approached by a woman who said she was selling cologne. Police say the woman asked the victim is he was interested in buying some cologne she was selling. "The suspect produced...

Have you ever REALLY wondered about those lead-painted toys the Chinese flooded us with ? Here's a (paranoid and xenophobic ?) look.

Baghdad, Sept 7, (VOI) – Three of the six defendants in the Anfal case will be executed by hanging on Saturday, a Saudi newspaper quoted the lawyer of former Iraqi deputy premier Tareq Aziz as saying. "The Iraqi Criminal Court notified Ali Hassan al-Majid, alias Chemical Ali, former defense minister Sultan Hashim and former chief of staff Hussein Rashid al-Tikriti that they will be executed tomorrow," lawyer Badie Aref Ezzat told Saudi newspaper al-Watan, published on Friday. The lawyer said he was told by the three convicts that they only wanted to meet their families before the executions. Ezzat said...