Gas device viability questioned

A highly touted device for dispensing deadly cyanide gas, allegedly developed by Al-Qaeda, most likely would have underperformed or failed completely, experts say. A recent UPI report quotes a University of Maryland chemical weapons expert as saying that deploying and using “Mubtakker” – Arabic for “invention” – is “basically a guessing game” that depends on a huge variety of factors. For one thing, the device uses acid and cyanide crystals to produce hydrogen cyanide gas but the process is so volatile that chances are good that it would actually destroy the device.

According to Ron Suskind in his new book The One Percent Doctrine, designs for “Mubtakker” were discovered on a seized computer in Saudi Arabia in February 2003, shortly before a plot to use several of them against the New York subway system was uncovered. In an extract from the book published in Time magazine recently, Suskind writes that with a few easily obtainable chemicals “you could construct it with a trip to Home Depot and then kill everyone in the store.”

“That is the stupidest statement I have heard in many years,” said the chemical weapons expert as quoted by UPI.