Assessments

For the Islamic State, poisons and nerve agents are hard to produce and even harder to use. 

Chemical weapons have been an ineffective tool for terrorists in the past, and the challenges of transporting large quantities of chemical materials nearly always outweigh the benefits.

Assessing Libya's Chemical Weapons Threat

Highlights

Iraq

Syria

Libya

Military & Security

The Jihadist Wars

Jihadist groups have long had a fixation with chemical and biological weapons, from al Qaeda's pre-9/11 programs, in places such as the Deronta training camp in Afghanistan, to its 2003 plot to deploy improvised cyanide weapons on subways. Now there are growing fears that Islamic State militants in Libya have access to such weapons and could use them in battle or in terrorist attacks against the West. However, these fears are overblown. C

ASSESSMENTS

Assessing Libya's Chemical Weapons Threat

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