Free Republic

    ~The FReeper Canteen Presents~ Road Trip: Pine Bluff Arsenal, ArkansasThe Pine Bluff Arsenal (PBA) is a United States Army installation located in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. PBA is one of the six Army installations in the United States which stores chemical weapons. PBA supplies specialized production, storage, maintenance and distribution of readiness products, and delivers technical services to the Armed Forces and Homeland Security. PBA also designs, manufactures and refurbishes smoke, riot control, and incendiary munitions, as well as chemical/biological defense operations items. It serves as a technology center for illuminating and infrared munitions and is also the...

Ahwazi Organization: Iran is Planning to Attack the Gulf Countries; Iran is Producing Chemical Weapons and Burying the Waste in Ahwaz On October 5, 2009, Alarabiya.net posted an interview with an Arab Ahwazi man who was presented as a former undercover agent for the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The man claimed that 40,000 well-trained operatives, mostly Shi'ites, are in the service of Iran in the ArabGulf states - 3,000 of them in Kuwait alone. He stated that the cells formed by these operatives were trained to collect intelligence, sabotage installations in the Gulf region, and assassinate senior officials. He...

At the end of when North Korea tested a nuclear bomb it was a total surprise to administration officials: North Korea's decision to detonate a nuclear device underground Monday caught the United States by surprise, officials said. "They didn't give us any warning whatsoever," one senior U.S. intelligence official who works on North Korean issues told FOX News. Another official told Reuters that North Korea gave less than an hour's notice to the United States that it would carry out the test. The official said the communist country made "no demands," and passed on the message that it would carry...

These are students who were in their dorm acting peacefully, bothering no one, and the police used tear gas on them.

Israel's air force fired around 20 missiles at targets in Gaza City on Saturday, causing heavy damage, a Reuters witness said. The IDF has confirmed the report. (Hanan Greenberg and Reuters)

The hidden Hizbullah arms cache in southern Lebanon that exploded in July contained chemical weapons, and three Hizbullah terrorists died as a result of the toxins, in addition to eight other terrorists killed by the blast, the Kuwaiti newspaper Alseyassah Kuwait said on Thursday.

Im was an officer in one of North Korea’s elite special forces. He fought for his government, even though it oppressed his people on a scale seldom seen before. Im’s superior had a 12-year old mentally challenged daughter. She was a good girl, but not very intelligent. She needed a lot of attention from her parents; a mother and a father she loved very much. There is no room for the mentally challenged in Kim Jong-Il’s North Korea, however. Im’s superior was told to hand his daughter over to the government. Because the officer knew what happens to such children...

The Dutch Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the war crimes conviction of a businessman for selling chemicals to Saddam Hussein that his regime in Iraq turned into poison gas and unleashed on Kurds and Iranians. ... In May 2007 a Hague appeals court upheld Van Anraat's 2005 conviction for complicity in war crimes and increased his sentence from 15 to 17 years. ... Presiding Judge Leo van Dorst said that from the mid-1980s Van Anraat was Iraq's sole supplier of a chemical called TDG, or thiodiglycol, for its mustard gas production program. "The suspect knew ... the TDG he was...

The Kurdish Halabja Centre CHAK has submitted new and possibly incriminating evidence in the appeal case against Dutch businessman Frans van Anraat. The documents were reportedly supplied by the Iraqi tribunal that sentenced former dictator Saddam Hussein to death. In December last year, Frans van Anraat was sentenced to 15 years in jail. The court in The Hague found him guilty of supplying materials for chemical weapons to the Saddam Hussein regime in the 1980s. He was acquitted of complicity in genocide because he reportedly did not know that Saddam Hussein intended to use poison gas on the Iraqi population....

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...

SNIPPET: "NEW DELHI: The al-Qaida-Taliban combo plans to use parts of the Middle East as launch pads for attacks against the west. Not only so, the groups have also developed some expertise in making bio-chemical weapons, NWFP police chief Malik Navid told a Pakistan National Assembly’s standing committee." SNIPPET: "Navid’s testimony also points to the virtual merger of al-Qaida with Taliban, with the latter being both part of the core and the major striking arm. Indian intelligence assessments see anti-India groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba being very much a part of this conglomerate."

HALABJA, Iraq - A cloud still hangs over Halabja. Twenty-one years after the cityÂ’s history was written in deadly vapor, the effects of one of IraqÂ’s most infamous days is evident in vacant eyes, still-abandoned farm fields, scarred bodies. On Monday, mourners sat on grave sites, mostly in ones and twos, intact families being a luxury here. They cried softly, stared into space as if still not believing their fate. "ItÂ’s been 21 years, but we feel suffering every day," said Khadija Mohammed, dabbing her eyes while leaning on the mass grave site where the bodies of her seven children...

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,...

Just another example of corrupt politicians putting their own bottom line ahead of America's interests. Scientists have discovered a lotion that can save the lives of U.S. soldiers exposed to chemical weapons — a product vastly superior to the standard-issue decontamination powder. Naturally, the Defense Department wants to scrap the powder and switch to the more-effective lotion. But there's a problem: After being lobbied by the companies making the powder, several members of Congress pushed through two earmarks worth $7.6 million that forced the military for the past two years to keep buying the inferior product. The product, known as...

At approximately 12:10 p.m., following up on a tip provided by an Iraqi citizen, Soldiers from Company B, 1st Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, seized five 155 mm rounds filled with chemical munitions and19 empty 155 mm rounds north of Baghdad.

LONDON — An Iranian ship captured by Somali pirates carried sealed containers of a powdery substance believed to be nuclear or chemical weapons agents. Western intelligence agencies have been monitoring the capture of the Iran Deyanat, seized by Somali pirates on Aug. 21. The cargo ship, owned and operated by the state-owned Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, or IRISL, contains sealed cargo thought to be linked to the death of 16 pirates.

IN A LITTLE-NOTICED DECISION in a New York courtroom on September 25, 2003, a man described as Osama bin Laden's "best friend" got some good news. U.S. District Court Judge Deborah Batts ruled that Mahmdouh Mahmud Salim could not be sentenced to life in prison. Salim--who was present at the founding of al Qaeda in 1989 and who was for years one of bin Laden's most trusted confidants--had been captured in Germany in 1998 and extradited to the United States for prosecution related to his role in the grand conspiracy that resulted in the 1998 bombings at U.S. embassies in...

(IsraelNN.com) The Kuwaiti daily al-Siyasa reported today that Hizbullah has acquired the chemicals needed to make chemical weapons such as nerve gas or mustard gas from North Korean suppliers and is allegedly preparing to arm its Katyusha rockets with chemical warheads. The Kuwaiti paper also declared that the assistance of Syria and Iran was crucial for Hizbullah’s efforts. The reports were based on information provided to al-Siyasa by Syrian opposition figures in the United States.

Dubai, 27 May (AKI ) - By Hamza Boccolini - A new video called "Nuclear Terrorism" has been posted on the worldwide web calling for jihadists to use nuclear or chemical weapons to strike the west. A simple jihadi propaganda video or a dangerous message to a sleeper cell in the west? That is the question raised by the video and no-one has yet claimed responsibility for it. "Strike civilians in the west without mercy using weapons of mass destruction" is one of the calls made in the 39-minute video. The question now being asked is whether the video is...

Munitions pose no danger FORT KNOX — World War I-era munitions found at a construction site at Fort Knox pose no danger, Army ordnance experts determined. Construction workers at the site of the future Human Resources Center of Excellence discovered the mortar shells Friday while moving soil for a sewer system. As an additional safety measure, an expert from the Army Corps of Engineers was brought in to inspect the site and present the post with options for proper site clean up and disposal. Based on inspection findings, Col. Mark Needham, garrison commander, directed an ordnance expert be hired to...

<p>The NYPD is on the lookout for individuals armed with "conventional or improvised weapons" who may unleash a devastating attack on the city by concealing deadly chemicals in light bulbs or fire extinguishers, The Post has learned.</p> <p>A four-page alert issued by the NYPD's counter-terrorism unit to cops over the weekend warns officers to keep their eyes peeled for "unusual conditions and activities" that may be a prelude to an attack.</p>

<p>On Sept. 6, something important happened in northern Syria. Problem is, no one knows exactly what. Except for those few who were involved, and they're not saying.</p> <p>We do know that Israel carried out an airstrike. How then do we know it was important? Because in Israel, where leaking is an art form, even the best-informed don't have a clue. They tell me they have never seen a better-kept secret. Which suggests that whatever happened near Dayr az Zawr was no accidental intrusion into Syrian airspace, no dry run for an attack on Iran, no strike on some conventional target such as an Iranian Revolutionary Guard base or a weapons shipment on its way to Hezbollah in Lebanon.</p>

There will be a joint Arlington County – Pentagon Force Protection Agency Test in Crystal City in early March,weather dependent. The Pentagon Force Protection Agency’s Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear Explosives Directorate (PFPA-CBRNE), in cooperation with Arlington County, will conduct a comprehensive evaluation of a simulated chemical release in an urban area. This cooperative test – to be conducted in the Crystal City area – will provide valuable information for both Arlington County and the Pentagon’s response to a chemical attack. The Crystal City Urban Transport Study (CCUTS) will involve releasing a colorless, odorless, tasteless, and inert tracer gas that poses...

LAS VEGAS - As police tried to piece together how a rare, deadly poison ended up in a motel for transients, the 57-year-old man who could hold the key lay unconscious in a hospital. Adding to the mystery, police said firearms and an "anarchist type textbook" were found in the same room where the ricin was discovered two days later. Capt. Joseph Lombardo said at a news conference late Friday that the book was tabbed at a spot with information about ricin. Police found the firearms and books on Tuesday after a manager at the Extended Stay America motel called...

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Preliminary tests indicate that a package found at a motel contained the toxin ricin, and seven people have been taken to hospitals, authorities said. Police were called to the Extended Stay America Motel on Thursday and retrieved a package from the motel manager that was determined to be a chemical or controlled substance, Officer Ramone Denby said. Two preliminary tests indicate it contained ricin, he said. Results from further tests by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a second local lab are expected Friday, police said. Homeland Security officials joined local police in the...

.."8 tons of...toxic agricultural chemicals belonging to the Baathist regime"

Five crop-duster planes have crashed on the terror-plagued island of Mindanao in a short period of time. Annie Jacobsen says that while it may feel like Mindanao is half a world away, the island’s plantations are linked to the international food supply chain. Is it time to start worrying about what’s being sprayed on your bananas? Support Pajamas Media; Visit Our Advertisers by Annie Jacobsen There have been five crop-duster plane crashes on the terrorist-plagued island of Mindanao in the Philippines in a 90-day period. The most recent incident happened on December 6. Three of the five crashes occurred on...

Articles indexed to sept62007 (in order of time indexed.) Israeli official: Russia behind tension with Syria ^   Posted by knighthawk On News/Activism ^ 08/30/2007 2:14:47 PM PDT · 9 replies · 322+ views al Bawaba ^ | August 30 2007   Russia uses Syrian port to demonstrate its power in the Med  ^   Posted by sukhoi-30mki On News/Activism ^ 09/01/2007 7:34:04 AM PDT · 12 replies · 379+ views The Jerusalem Post ^ | Aug 31, 2007 | ALEX KOGAN   Syrian army says it fired on IAF craft violating its space ^   Posted by Nextrush On News/Activism ^ 09/06/2007 4:57:51 AM...

<p>Israeli officials vowed to wipe Syria off the map if it is attacked with chemical weapons like one that reportedly exploded in July at a secret Syrian base staffed with Iranian engineers.</p> <p>Politicians in Israel said yesterday they were not picking a fight with their neighbor, but pledged to forcefully retaliate if chemical warheads come screaming across its shared border.</p>

This is a bit dated, but then, I had no idea... Did you realize that Albania is the first country to destroy its entire chemical weapons stockpile (18 tons!)?

<p>Proof of cooperation between Iran and Syria in the proliferation and development of weapons of mass destruction was brought to light Monday in a Jane's Magazine report that dozens of Iranian engineers and 15 Syrian officers were killed in a July 23 accident in Syria.</p>

Military scientists tested mustard gas on Indians · Hundreds of soldiers used in experiments · Illnesses caused by carcinogen not tracked Rob Evans Saturday September 1, 2007 The Guardian British military scientists sent hundreds of Indian soldiers into gas chambers and exposed them to mustard gas, documents uncovered by the Guardian have revealed. The Guardian understands that the British military did not check up on the Indian soldiers after the experiments to see if they developed any illnesses. It is now recognised that mustard gas can cause cancer and other diseases. Many suffered severe burns on their skin, including their...

Baghdad, 7 May (AKI) - Al Qaeda in Iraq is involved in developping new arms and using new techniques to carry out its terrorist attacks, according to sources within the Iraqi insurgency, quoted by the Egyptian Islamic press agency al-Naba. According to the agency's internet site, after creating new missiles able to strike US combat helicopters with greater precision, the al-Qaeda network is seeking new methods, different from the characteristic suicide attacks or car bombs. Last week a cell of al-Qaeda active in Kurdistan reportedly tried for the first time to use a remote-controlled aircraft to carry out an attack,...

Three chlorine gas attacks in Iraq are reported to have killed eight people and left hundreds injured, including six US troops. Two of the attacks were near the city of Falluja, the third near Ramadi, west of Baghdad. Both areas are hotbeds of al-Qaeda militants. Chlorine gas can cause severe burns to the throat and lungs and can kill after only a few breaths. There were at least three such attacks in Iraq in February. 'Vomiting' The heaviest casualties were in a suicide attack on Friday evening at the entrance to a housing estate south of Falluja in which six...

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Saddam Hussein's cousin acknowledged on Sunday he had given orders to destroy scores of Kurdish villages and the prosecution in the so-called Anfal trial introduced two dozen documents it said incriminated members of Saddam Hussein's regime in the campaign that killed tens of thousands of Kurds in the 1980s. "All the orders given to relocate people were my decisions...

The Salahaldin Al-Ayoubi Brigades, the military wing of JAMI, Al Jabha Al-Islamiyya l'il-Muqawama Al-'Iraqiyya, announced via Islamist websites that today, January 10, 2007, it had fired four missiles loaded with chemicals at a U.S. base near Samara, Iraq. The organization posted a film showing militants wearing gas masks and filling the missiles with a liquid which the organization claims are chemicals. Below are images from the film.

BAGHDAD, 9 January 2007 — Saddam Hussein and his cousin Ali Hassan Al-Majid discussed how chemical weapons would exterminate thousands before unleashing them on Kurds in 1988, according to tapes played yesterday in a trial of former Iraqi officials. “I will strike them with chemical weapons and kill them all,” a voice identified by prosecutors as that of Ali Hassan, or “Chemical Ali”, is heard saying. “Who is going to say anything? The international community? Curse the international community,” the voice continued. “Yes, it’s effective, especially on those who don’t wear a mask immediately, as we understand,” a voice identified...

http://www.kurdmedia.com/articles.asp?id=13821 The execution of Saddam Hussein without judgment on the Anfal Genocide Saturday, December 30, 2006 CHAK The Center of Halabja against Anfalization and Genocide of the Kurds (C.H.A.K.) regards the execution of the former dictator Saddam Hussein, without the findings of the other cases, as an absolute devaluation of the interests of the Kurdish victims. Saddam Hussein should have face justice for the crimes he committed against the Kurds, and should be sentenced for these crimes. Saddam was executed without face justice for the cleansing of the Fayili Kurds in the 1970’s and 1980’s; the Arabization of Kurd-Arab border...

AMONG contemporary tyrants, Saddam Hussein ranked among the most brutal until the dawn hanging ended his life just as the most important holiday of the Islamic calendar, Eid al-Adha, the Festival of the Sacrifice, began. Not only was he responsible for the deaths of perhaps as many as two million people, including his own countrymen, he held power throughout his reign by wielding a savagely primitive tribal feudalism on a massive scale. His tools were treachery, betrayal, revenge and assassination and they kept him in power in Iraq for more than 30 years. Though the 69-year-old was executed after his...

Most brutal dictator of our time SADDAM w/ Quran, devout Muslim (just like Idi Amin) The media like to paint him as "secular". Well, let's just check some facts, Shall we? Saddam holds a Quran all the time during his trial (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9652810/ Saddam — holding a copy of the Quran he brought with him into the session and held throughout — replied quietly, “I said what I said. I am not guilty,” referring to his arguments earlier in the session). 1990 Interview on ABC's Diana Sawyer he so (ironicolly) says "The biggest sin a man can make is to forget...

I just received a private e-mail from someone I know from a Marine website who has family in Iraq. There has been a weapons cache explosion that caused many, hundreds of people to be exposed to some chemical that was present in the weapons.

The court trying Saddam Hussein for genocide has heard testimony from Kurdish witnesses describing alleged chemical attacks on their villages. Villagers spoke of their memories of Operation Anfal, a crackdown against Iraqi Kurds in the late 1980s. They described a smell "like rotten apples" minutes after the bombings, comparing them to "Doomsday". Testimony came after the ousted Iraqi president's defence stormed out, saying the trial could not be fair. Chief defence lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi walked out of court after requests made in an apparent end to the boycott of the genocide trial were turned down. After a heated exchange,...

TWO Pendle men have appeared before Pennine magistrates accused of having "a master plan" after what is believed to be a record haul of chemicals used in making home-made bombs was found in Colne. Robert Cottage (49), of Talbot Street, Colne, and David Bolus Jackson (62), of Trent Road, Nelson, made separate appearances before the court charged with being in possession of an explosive substance for an unlawful purpose. The offences are under the Explosive Substances Act 1883. Both men were remanded in custody to appear at Burnley Crown Court on October 23rd. Cottage was arrested at his home on...

Paul Pillar Speaks, Again The latest CIA attack on the Bush administration is nothing new. by Stephen F. Hayes 02/10/2006 4:15:00 PM IN A BREATHLESS front-page, above-the-fold article in today's Washington Post, Walter Pincus reports that a former senior CIA official named Paul Pillar accuses the Bush administration of "misusing" intelligence to take the country to war in Iraq. According to the Post account, Pillar uses a forthcoming article in Foreign Affairs to claim that the Bush administration "politicized" the intelligence on Iraq. Bush administration policymakers did this subtly, Pillar says, by repeatedly asking the CIA questions about Iraq, its...

April 13, 2003 Paratroopers Find Suspicious Warheads and Rocket Parts in KirkukBy C. J. CHIVERS IRKUK, Iraq, April 12 — American paratroopers tonight discovered what they described as suspicious warheads and rocket components outside the former Iraqi governor's office here, a tantalizing but inconclusive find on the first day of a large-scale American presence in the oil capital of northern Iraq. The officers said the warheads appeared to be the lethal ends of surface-to-surface rockets, but they could not immediately determine if they were of a design prohibited by United Nations resolutions, or whether they were built to hold chemical...

WASHINGTON — In a "60 Minutes" interview on April 23, Tyler Drumheller, a former chief of the CIA's Europe division, made a sensational charge. He claimed that President Bush and his White House ignored intelligence before the invasion of Iraq indicating that Saddam Hussein had no had weapons of mass destruction. On the CBS-TV show, and in subsequent media interviews that appeared throughout the world, Drumheller said that the White House was excited about the fact that the CIA was getting information straight from Naji Sabri, the then Iraqi foreign minister. But when the White House found out this source...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Cursing Saddam Hussein, a Kurdish woman told the former Iraqi leader's genocide trial on Wednesday she was horribly burned after aircraft bombed her mountain village with chemical weapons. "I lost my sight. My children lost their sight ... My house was razed to the ground. May God blind them all," said Adiba Owla Bayez, pointing at the former Iraqi president and his six co-defendants on the third day of the trial. Describing a spring evening in 1987, the 45-year-old mother of five said aircraft dropped bombs behind her house and she had immediately noticed a difference from...

MUSLIM terrorists are plotting a further 24 bombing outrages in the UK, Home Secretary John Reid confirmed yesterday. And he warned: "There may be more that we don't know about at all." He added that since the 7/7 attacks "four major plots have been thwarted". But he denied involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan had made Britain a target. He said: "We now think the first al-Qaeda plot preceded our intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan and actually preceded 9/11. "It was in Birmingham back in 2000." Police said terror cells are stockpiling a range of weapons, including bombs which spray cyanide...

BRUSSELS — The Israeli military is using chemical weapons during its bombing of Lebanon, a Belgian-Lebanese professor claimed during a press conference in Brussels on Thursday.The press conference was organised by the secretary of the Tripoli archbishop, Monsignor Jean Abboud. The Belgian professor of Lebanese origin, Bachir Cham, is the head of a hospital in Lebanon."The bodies don't look like they normally do. After an explosion there were no traces of blood loss or subcutaneous haemorrhages [bruises]," Cham said via mobile phone direct from Beirut."The hair and sometimes the beard and the moustache remained intact. I found no traces of...

WASHINGTON, June 29, 2006 – The 500 munitions discovered throughout Iraq since 2003 and discussed in a National Ground Intelligence Center report meet the criteria of weapons of mass destruction, the center's commander said here today. "These are chemical weapons as defined under the Chemical Weapons Convention, and yes ... they do constitute weapons of mass destruction," Army Col. John Chu told the House Armed Services Committee. The Chemical Weapons Convention is an arms control agreement which outlaws the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons. It was signed in 1993 and entered into force in 1997. The munitions found...