Belgium Finds Nerve Gas Ingredient in Letters

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Belgian investigators found a nerve gas ingredient in letters addressed to the Belgian prime minister's office, and the U.S., British and Saudi Arabian embassies, officials said on Wednesday.

Two postal workers were briefly hospitalized after being exposed to the chemicals.

The brownish-yellow powder contained phenarsazine chloride, an arsenic derivative used in nerve gas, as well as hydrazine, an agent used as a rocket propellant, said Health Ministry spokeswoman Anne-Francoise Gally said.

In the amounts contained in the letters, the two chemicals are not life threatening, but can cause irritation to the eyes and skin, she said.

A spokeswoman for the federal prosecutor's office said police suspected that the letters had one source.

"There are clear indications that the sender of the letters is one and the same person," Lieve Pellens told VRT. "There are clear similarities among the letters."

Pellens said some of them also contained a written message reading "International Islamic Society" and "Bastards."

"The first checks by police specialists show that this organization is unknown," she said.

The scare came as 23 suspected collaborators of al Qaeda stood trial in Belgium on charges of fraud, possession of firearms, recruiting for a foreign armed force and other crimes.

The letters were reminiscent of the anthrax mailings that killed five people in the United States following the September 11, 2001, attacks blamed on al Qaeda.

Belgium and other Western European countries have been on heightened alert for possible attacks following last month's suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia and Morocco, also blamed on al Qaeda or people affiliated with it.

In Belgium, at least 10 letters containing chemicals were mailed to addresses including the U.S., British and Saudi Arabian embassies in Brussels, and various Belgian ministries, including Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt's office.

Also targeted by the letters were the Brussels court house, an airport in the coastal town of Oostende, and the port authority in Antwerp, Belgium's second city.

Police intercepted some of the letters but those sent to the British and Saudi Arabian embassies slipped through.

"It wasn't opened...the police have come this morning and removed the envelope," British embassy spokeswoman Lucy Joyce told VRT television. "It was a fairly ordinary white envelope."

The discovery prompted an emergency meeting of the health, justice and interior ministers to assess the incident and consider extra security measures, a government spokeswoman said.

Belgium had anthrax scares in 2001 but an investigation showed the letters contained an innocuous white powder. The latest discoveries were the first to involve dangerous substances.

Thanks for the digest of related info and the analysis. I can't add anything about hydrazine. In my agricultural life, it never came up.

Let's hope that somebody in law enforcement is paying as much attention, and expending as much energy, as you on tracking these connections.

Because we sure as hell know the mainstream media isn't doing squat. And, if the truth be known, probably doesn't know how to do this kind of work anymore...

Incidentally, there are several ingredients commonly employed in spraying pesticides (whether aerial or surface) whose purpose it is to accelerate absorption (by the leaf, rather than skin). As a group, they are "surfactants" -- nothing more than non-foaming varieties of detergent -- which break down surface tension.

Perhaps, hydrazine acts in this way -- but it seems an expensive and probably awkward way to achieve the effect.

"Surfactant"

I learn something new here most every day!

Web search of "Hydrazine Surfactant" gets hits, nowhere is hydrazine named a surfactant.

Small world - there's an OKC occurance.
http://www.okcitytrial.com/content/dailytx/043097p/PaulRydlundCrossExaminatio.html

This is the testimony of a scientist on the OKC bomb. he mentions that hydrazine can serve the same purpose as "fuel oil" is said to have served in the OKC type of bomb. (No proportions are stated at the link so I think it's ok to hyperlink it here.) "Surfactant" comes up otherwise at the site.

So perhaps the terrorist interest in the chemical's explosive qualities comes from it's specific suitability to OKC type bombs.

Hydrazine - the terr's wonder chemical! Used for poisons for absorptive qualities (or some other quality). Also for explosions.

http://www4.rtbf.be/rtbf_2000/bin/view_something.cgi?type=article&id=0133411_article&menu=default&pub=RTBF.PORTAIL%2fPORTAIL.FR.la_taille.SP.BELG

The federal police force challenged Wednesday evening in its residence of Deinze a 45 year old Iraqi who could be the author of the toxic letters discovered Tuesday and Wednesday . This man, who is not known justice, was placed at the disposal of an examining magistrate of Ghent which will have to decide if it puts it under warrant for arrest, indicated Thursday evening the federal parquet floor.

Its spokesman, Lieve Pellens, did not want to say if this man had accomplices or if it were related to a terrorist group. Wednesday, Mrs. Pellens had stressed that the targets of the 10 letter bombs as well as the signatures "The International Islamic Society" pushed the federal parquet floor to check the track islamist. The federal parquet floor did not want to reveal Thursday evening how the police force identified this man.

At the time of the searching carried out at this man Wednesday evening, the police officers took along in tight bags a series of exhibits, of which diaries and notebooks. They were to be examined Thursday by police officers of the Cell terrorism of the SJA (legal service of district) of Brussels.

When those opened the bags, Thursday towards 14h00, they felt a little later of irritations to the throat, the skin and the eyes in spite of their protective gloves. They had to receive care at the hospital which they could leave in the evening, the legal director of the SJA, Glenn Audenaert indicated.

The Tower IBM, which shelters in particular the buildings of the SJA, was evacuated to prevent that the substances do not gain all the building via the system of air conditioning. The building was checked Thursday at the end of the afternoon by a company specialized in decontamination: only the stage of the Cell terrorism could not be occupied Friday morning.

The symptoms felt by these police officers are the same ones as those which felt the poisoned people Tuesday and Wednesday by the ten letter bombs with the toxic powder, which reinforces the suspicions against the Iraqi.

Five of the letter bombs had reached their recipients: the harbour office of the wearing of Antwerp, the airport of Ostend, grafts it supreme court of appeal and the embassies of Great Britain and Saudi Arabia. Five others - addressed to the cabinet of the Prime Minister, with the ministries for Justice and the Foreign Affairs, with the court of first authority of Brussels and with the embassy of the United States - had been intercepted in the postal sorting offices of Deinze and Ghent.

Thorough analyses of toxicology were carried out on the seven contents of these ten letters. They confirmed the presence of adamsite, so known under the name of chloryde of phénarsazine, a substance in particular used in pesticides. This flammable product can, once set ablaze, to emit a gas which can be mortal, specified Mr. Audenaert.

Examinations will have to determine if the substances discovered at the Iraqi are identical. A graphologist will analyze his writing in addition in order to determine if he is well the script writer of the ten intercepted trapped envelopes Tuesday and merdredi.

The first examinations had shown that only one person, having tried to modify her writing, had written the address on these ten envelopes. Fifteen people - including six police officers and of the employees of the embassy of Saudi Arabia - had been slightly poisoned by their contents.

The sending of such letter bombs can be qualified voluntary aggravated assault with premeditation and the aggravating circumstance that there was disability. The sorrows envisaged go from 6 months to 3 years.

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