Hamas' homegrown efforts appear to be rather crude - what's scary is what could happen if Al Queda or Saddam's agents hook up with Hamas and provide them with some very nasty chemical or bio-weapons. What's also quite telling is the hesitation Hamas apparently had, and may still have, in pursuing these weapons because of a fear of Israel's 'harsh response'. In other words, if the Israelis weren't 'trigger happy', as some like to put it, they would have been attacked by these weapons already.

Hamas pursuing chemical, biological weapons
By Ellis Shuman January 3, 2003

Members of Hamas's military wing have been gathering information to help them carry out chemical and biological attacks. The terror organization's interest in non-conventional weaponry soared after September 11, 2001, which "broke a taboo" against mass-casualty attacks. The official Hamas website has published a manual for preparing poisonous materials to use in a terrorist attack.

Details of Hamas's plans surfaced this week in an indictment issued at a military court against Walid al-Ara, 34, a university student majoring in computers and the owner of a computer store in Gaza, Ha'aretz reported. Ara was a member of Hamas's military wing, the indictment said, and in June, he was approached by Zahar Nasser, an aide to Salah Shehada, the Hamas leader who was killed by an Israeli strike last July. Nasser, who was killed along with Shehada, allegedly asked Ara to help the organization gather information that would help it carry out an attack with biological weapons.

According to the indictment, Nasser asked Ara to research the subject over the Internet, but warned that such an attack would be difficult to carry out and could provoke a harsh Israeli warning. Ara is also charged with making bombs and gathering information on the Internet to give other Hamas bomb-makers. It is not known if Ara managed to pass on what he learned to Nasser before Nasser was killed. The indictment was based mostly on Ara's confession, Ha'aretz reported.

Security sources said there have been other attempts by Hamas and Islamic Jihad to stage non-conventional terror attacks, including a Hamas plan to poison the food in Jerusalem's Rimon cafe; an Islamic Jihad plan to poison the water supply of a Jerusalem hospital; and a plan by Nabil Okhel, an Al-Qaida operative, to poison the entire country's water supply.

"It is clear that biological or chemical weapons are one way to achieve a 'mega-attack,'" one source told Ha'aretz. "But it appears that at present, the terrorist organizations' plans are not implementable. We must be careful not to sow public panic in this area."

Hamas website publishes manual for poisons, chemical gases

A manual published on the official Hamas website, titled "The Mujahadeen Poisons Handbook," is further evidence of Hamas's use of the Internet as a means of assistance in its efforts to carry out terrorist attacks, the IDF's website reported.

The 23-page manual, written by Abdel-Aziz in 1996, details the preparation of various homemade poisons, chemical poisons, poisonous gases and other deadly materials for use in terrorist attacks against Israelis, Westerners, and "anyone else who stands in the way of Islamic Jihad."

The information in the manual is derived from a course on poisoning the author took with other terrorists. "The products were used on rabbits to test their effectiveness," Aziz wrote.

The author warns his readers, "Be very careful when preparing poisons. It is much, much more dangerous than preparing explosives! I know several Mujahids [Jihad warriors] whose bodies are finished due to poor protection, etc."

The "recipe book" portion of the manual lists the ingredients necessary for the preparation of potassium cyanide and hydrogen sulfide gas. "You MUST wear gloves and a gas mask during preparation and handling of cyanides," the manual warns. "Do not touch it even with a gloved hand. Inhalation of its odor will lead to headaches, dizziness, fever and stomach pain."

The lethal dose of the cyanide, the manual says, will cause death within 3-4 minutes.