Tag: Chemical and Biological Weapons

Advances in 3D Printing Technology: Increasing Biological Weapon Proliferation Risks?

Image courtesy of Army Medicine/Flickr. (CC BY 2.0)

This article was originally published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) on 29 July 2019.

The states parties to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) gathered in Geneva from 29 July to 8 August for a series of Meetings of Experts. Among other topics, states reviewed scientific and technological developments that impact the objectives of the treaty. Additive manufacturing (AM)—also referred to as 3D printing—is one of the technologies that is starting to receive attention, next to more well-known biotechnologies and genetic engineering techniques. Advances in AM have been met with concerns over its potential to facilitate the development, production, delivery and thus proliferation of biological weapons—and have highlighted the potential role of export controls in reducing these risks.

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Russia Used a Two-Year-Old Video and an ‘Alternative’ Swedish Group to Discredit Reports of Syria Gas Attack

Courtesy of flikr/Flickr. (CC BY 2.0)

This article was published by the World Policy Institute on 18 May 2017.

A video that Moscow used as key piece of evidence that its ally President Bashar al-Assad had nothing to do with the chemical attack in Idlib which killed more than 80 people, including many children and women one month ago, was in fact released two years ago and first cited a month before the attack actually took place.

The video was pushed out across Russian state-controlled airwaves and on social media shortly after President Donald J. Trump launched the first direct U.S. military strike on Syrian government forces.

It showed what looks like a makeshift emergency room: doctors working frantically around the small bodies of limp, half-naked children, their eyes rolling back and noses foaming. A girl in pink underwear lies on top of an elderly woman who seems to have already died. One bed over, a doctor injects a long needle deep into a small child’s chest.

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Categories
Terrorism

African Parliaments Lead the Continent’s Fight Against Weapons of Mass Destruction

Chemical Weapons
Pallets of 155 mm artillery shells containing “HD” mustard gas, courtesy US Government/wikimedia

This article was originally published by the Institute for Security Studies on 4 April 2016.

On 18 February, Moroccan police reportedly found chemical or biological agents while raiding a ‘safe house’ linked to Daesh in the province of El Jadida, on the Atlantic coast. It is presumed that the agents, possibly toxins, were intended for terrorist purposes.

Investigations are currently underway, spearheaded by the Moroccan Ministry of Interior’s Direction Générale de la Surveillance du Territoire. Official information remains scarce, but if confirmed, the discovery of a terrorist plot using chemical or biological weapons would mark a new milestone as extremists resort to more lethal and more devastating weapons, to spread violence with maximum casualties and the highest impact.

This development is not a surprise. Jihadist literature has, for a while, called for the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction – encouraging the production of ricin, botulinum and sarin. (An example of this can be found in the third edition of the magazine disseminated by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.)

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