In November 2005 the trial of Azmi Jayussi and 12 other Islamists, including Al Zarqawi in abstentia, began in Jordan.
These ten captured Al-Qaida terrorists were on trial in Jordan for attempting to explode roughly 20 tons of chemical weapons with explosives. Authorities captured the weapons coming into Jordan through Syria. The chemicals were believed to be VX nerve gas. There were 20 tons of the weapons and explosives captured coming into Jordan from Syria. Syria reportedly didn’t make VX. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq did.
For some reason the US media was not much interested in this trial during the Bush years(?)
This week several US Senators wrote a letter to Hillary Clinton expressing their concern that the turmoil in Syria could result in chemical weapons to be used against US troops in the region.
US News reported:
Several senators are raising concerns that unrest in Syria could allow that nation’s chemical and other weapons to be used against U.S. forces and allies in the region.
“The growing breakdown of order and security in Syria could place its significant stockpiles of poison gases and operational chemical weapons at risk,” Maine Republican Susan Collins, New York Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand, and New Hampshire Democrat Jeanne Shaheen wrote in a February 17 letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. DOTMIL obtained a copy of the letter.
[See pictures of the violence in Syria]
The senators want the Obama administration to spell out the planning it has done to prepare for and “address” the potential that the Assad regime’s stockpiles of chemical weapons might go missing. “In the event of a regime collapse, it is difficult to overstate the danger these weapons could pose to allies and U.S. forces in the region if they fall into the wrong hands,” the letter states.
The senators pointed to the apparent seizure of Libyan shoulder-fired missiles during that nation’s internal conflict. Those missing weapons show “that non-state terrorist groups will seek to secure these weapons in the midst of chaos and an apparent lack of security or custody of these weapons,” the senators wrote.
