The Organ­i­sa­tion for the Pro­hi­bi­tion of Chem­i­cal Weapons (OPCW) issued its report on the “novi­chok” nerve agent used against Sergei Skri­pal and his daugh­ter Yulia. The report is being tout­ed as a vin­di­ca­tion of the UK gov­ern­men­t’s charges that the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment must have been behind the attack.

So what did the OPCW report con­clude? Well, the key find­ing is that the chem­i­cal agent was of a “high puri­ty”. And that is being point­ed to as con­clu­sive evi­dence that the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment ordered the attack because only the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment has the capa­bil­i­ty of man­u­fac­tur­ing very high puri­ty novi­chok. The fact that Rus­sia is obvi­ous­ly not the only enti­ty on the plan­et with the capac­i­ty to man­u­fac­ture such a sub­stance with high lev­els of puri­ty isn’t addressed. Also, the fact that com­pounds pro­duced by a gov­ern­ment might fall into pri­vate hands also isn’t addressed.

This is a good time to recall the recent warn­ings by a num­ber of chemists that the char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of the novi­chok com­pounds as ultra-sophis­ti­cat­ed and some­thing only a biowar­fare agency could cre­ate is bogus and the chem­i­cals are actu­al­ly rel­a­tive­ly easy to syn­the­size in any good chem­istry lab, as long as you take strin­gent safe­ty pre­cau­tions.

The arti­cle men­tions that the UK gov­ern­ment has stat­ed that its attri­bu­tion against the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment also includes intel­li­gence sources. Those sources claim that the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment has pro­duced novi­chok in the past decade and exper­i­ment­ed with its use for assas­si­na­tion

Along those lines, the arti­cle also notes that Vladimir Uglev, a key mem­ber of the Sovi­et research team that devel­oped novi­chok in the 1970s and 1980s, has also come out in sup­port of the British gov­ern­men­t’s con­clu­sions. Uglev said he was sure the com­pound used was one of those his team had first devel­oped in 1975. But Uglev also not­ed cau­tioned that it would be impos­si­ble to prove beyond doubt where the com­pound used in this attack had orig­i­nat­ed:

The Finan­cial Times

Chem­i­cal weapons agency backs UK find­ings on Skri­pal nerve agent
OPCW con­firms Britain’s sci­en­tif­ic analy­sis of poi­son used in Sal­is­bury attack

Hen­ry Mance in Lon­don and Kathrin Hille in Moscow
April 12, 2018, 9:50 am

The Organ­i­sa­tion for the Pro­hi­bi­tion of Chem­i­cal Weapons has con­firmed Britain’s sci­en­tif­ic analy­sis of the nerve agent used in last month’s Sal­is­bury attack.

The inter­na­tion­al watch­dog said on Thurs­day that its team could “con­firm the find­ings of the Unit­ed King­dom relat­ing to the iden­ti­ty of the tox­ic chem­i­cal that was used in Sal­is­bury and severe­ly injured three peo­ple”.

For­mer Russ­ian dou­ble agent Sergei Skri­pal, his daugh­ter Yulia Skri­pal and a police­man, Nick Bai­ley, were hos­pi­talised after the poi­son­ing on March 4.

Mr Bai­ley was dis­charged last month, while Ms Skri­pal was released from hos­pi­tal on Mon­day. On Wednes­day, she issued a state­ment through the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Police reject­ing over­tures from Russ­ian offi­cials who want­ed to speak to her.

The OPCW’s sum­ma­ry report did not name the com­pound, which Britain has said is a mil­i­tary grade nerve agent from the novi­chok fam­i­ly that was devel­oped in Rus­sia.

How­ev­er, it named the chem­i­cal in its “full clas­si­fied report”, which was made avail­able to 192 state par­ties, includ­ing Rus­sia.

The OPCW said the tox­ic chem­i­cal “was of high puri­ty” — lend­ing cre­dence to the UK’s argu­ment that only a state with a sophis­ti­cat­ed lab­o­ra­to­ry could real­is­ti­cal­ly have deployed the chem­i­cal.

In response, the Russ­ian for­eign min­istry said it would not believe any con­clu­sions of the inves­ti­ga­tion until it was allowed to par­tic­i­pate in the probe and giv­en access to the sam­ples used for iden­ti­fy­ing the sub­stance the Skri­pals were attacked with. Moscow had asked to be part of the OPCW’s inves­ti­ga­tion, but lost a vote among mem­ber states last week.

“We can­not sup­port in advance the results of an inves­ti­ga­tion in which we are not par­tic­i­pat­ing and which are being kept secret,” said Maria Zakharo­va, for­eign min­istry spokes­woman.

Ms Zakharova’s crit­i­cism of the OPCW came at the end of an hour-long mono­logue in which she accused the British author­i­ties of detain­ing Ms Skri­pal against her own will.

Moscow also seized on com­ments made last week by the head of Por­ton Down, Britain’s mil­i­tary lab­o­ra­to­ry, who said his team had not iden­ti­fied the pre­cise source of the novi­chok used in the Sal­is­bury attack.

The British gov­ern­ment respond­ed that its trac­ing was based on intel­li­gence show­ing that Rus­sia has pro­duced novi­chok in the past decade and exper­i­ment­ed with its use for assas­si­na­tion.

A key mem­ber of the Sovi­et research team that devel­oped novi­chok in the 1970s and 1980s has also sided with the British gov­ern­ment in its dis­pute with Moscow. Vladimir Uglev said he was sure the com­pound used was one of those his team had first devel­oped in 1975, but cau­tioned that it would be impos­si­ble to prove beyond doubt where the Sal­is­bury nerve agent had orig­i­nat­ed.

The sur­vival of the Skri­pals has been used to raise doubts about whether novi­chok could have been used in the poi­son­ing. How­ev­er, experts have said that the effect of the nerve agent would have depend­ed on how they came into con­tact with it and in what form.

The OPCW said it took “blood sam­ples from the three affect­ed indi­vid­u­als”, con­duct­ed “on-site sam­pling of envi­ron­men­tal sam­ples” at places where the chem­i­cal might have remained, and received splits of sam­ples tak­en by the British author­i­ties. It was also briefed by the UK gov­ern­ment.

Fol­low­ing the pub­li­ca­tion of the OPCW report on Thurs­day, Boris John­son, UK for­eign sec­re­tary, said: “There can be no doubt what was used and there remains no alter­na­tive expla­na­tion about who was respon­si­ble — only Rus­sia has the means, motive and record.”

...

———-

“Chem­i­cal weapons agency backs UK find­ings on Skri­pal nerve agent” by Hen­ry Mance and Kathrin Hille; The Finan­cial Times; 04/12/2018

“The OPCW said the tox­ic chem­i­cal “was of high puri­ty” — lend­ing cre­dence to the UK’s argu­ment that only a state with a sophis­ti­cat­ed lab­o­ra­to­ry could real­is­ti­cal­ly have deployed the chem­i­cal.”

And that “high puri­ty” appears to be the key OPCW find­ing seen as lend­ing cre­dence to the UK’s charge that this nerve agent had to emerge from a state with a sophis­ti­cat­ed lab.

Although the UK gov­ern­ment asserts that it also is bas­ing its con­clu­sion on intel­li­gence show­ing that Russ­ian has pro­duced novi­chok in the past decade and exper­i­ment­ed with using it as a tool for assas­si­na­tion. More details on the nature of this intel­li­gence isn’t avail­able:

...
The British gov­ern­ment respond­ed that its trac­ing was based on intel­li­gence show­ing that Rus­sia has pro­duced novi­chok in the past decade and exper­i­ment­ed with its use for assas­si­na­tion.
...

Addi­tion­al­ly, Vladimir Uglev, a key mem­ber of the Sovi­et research team that devel­oped novi­chok in the 1970s and 1980s, has pub­licly stat­ed that he’s sure the com­pound used was in the novi­chok fam­i­ly of chem­i­cals. But he also warned that it would­n’t actu­al­ly be pos­si­ble to prove beyond doubt where the chem­i­cal came from:

...
A key mem­ber of the Sovi­et research team that devel­oped novi­chok in the 1970s and 1980s has also sided with the British gov­ern­ment in its dis­pute with Moscow. Vladimir Uglev said he was sure the com­pound used was one of those his team had first devel­oped in 1975, but cau­tioned that it would be impos­si­ble to prove beyond doubt where the Sal­is­bury nerve agent had orig­i­nat­ed.
...

So while Uglev sup­ports one aspect of the UK gov­ern­men­t’s charges — that a novi­chok com­pound was in fact used in this attack — he’s also effec­tive­ly down­play­ing the idea that this could be con­clu­sive­ly traced back to Russ­ian gov­ern­ment labs or any oth­er labs.

Inter­est­ing­ly, as the fol­low­ing arti­cle notes, Uglev has also stat­ed which novi­chok com­pound was used in the attack: A‑234. Uglev in fact told the Finan­cial Times that “I have no doubt that it was pre­cise­ly A‑234 which was used!” This is based on com­ments made by Por­ton Down sci­en­tists and oth­er infor­ma­tion he had received:

The Finan­cial Times

Sovi­et sci­en­tist backs UK over Skri­pal poi­son­ing
Novi­chok devel­op­er con­vinced of source of attack but cau­tions over find­ing proof

Kathrin Hille in Moscow
April 8, 2018; 10:03 pm

A key mem­ber of the Sovi­et research team that devel­oped the nerve agent the UK claimed was used to poi­son the for­mer dou­ble agent Sergei Skri­pal has sided with the British gov­ern­ment in its dis­pute with Moscow.

Vladimir Uglev said he was con­vinced Mr Skri­pal and his daugh­ter Yulia had been attacked in the Eng­lish city of Sal­is­bury with a com­pound he had devel­oped in 1975. How­ev­er, he cau­tioned it would be impos­si­ble to prove beyond doubt where the nerve agent had orig­i­nat­ed.

Mr Uglev worked on the pro­gramme, code­named Foliant by the Sovi­ets, that led to the devel­op­ment of the novi­chok sta­ble of chem­i­cal weapons from the 1970s until the 1990s.

His com­ments come as the Organ­i­sa­tion for the Pro­hi­bi­tion of Chem­i­cal Weapons is expect­ed to com­plete its analy­sis of sam­ples of the sub­stance used in the Sal­is­bury attack this week.

Moscow and Lon­don have been engaged in an esca­lat­ing infor­ma­tion war ever since the UK gov­ern­ment said Rus­sia was the like­ly per­pe­tra­tor of the attack.

Britain’s defence research lab­o­ra­to­ry at Por­ton Down has iden­ti­fied one of a group of nerve agents col­lec­tive­ly referred to as novi­chok — a name one of Mr Uglev’s col­leagues coined for the group of sub­stances — as hav­ing been used in the poi­son­ing.

“I have no doubt that it was pre­cise­ly A‑234 which was used!” Mr Uglev said in com­ments emailed to the Finan­cial Times from his retire­ment home on the Black Sea coast.

He said judg­ing by com­ments made by Por­ton Down sci­en­tists and oth­er infor­ma­tion he had received, the sub­stance had to be the com­pound he had first syn­the­sised in Decem­ber 1975 at the State Sci­en­tif­ic Research Insti­tute of Organ­ic Chem­istry and Tech­nol­o­gy, in the south­ern Russ­ian town of Shikhany.

Mr Uglev has spo­ken about the Skri­pal case before but his lat­est remarks go much fur­ther than pre­vi­ous com­ments.

He was also heav­i­ly crit­i­cal of Vladimir Putin, Russ­ian pres­i­dent, and his admin­is­tra­tion.

“As a Russ­ian cit­i­zen, I do not accept the great-pow­er chau­vin­ism fanned by the regime of Krem­lin-Lubyan­ka thieves and killers, and there­fore ful­ly under­stand and sup­port the pol­i­cy of the British gov­ern­ment towards Rus­sia,” Mr Uglev said.

The Lubyan­ka is the Moscow head­quar­ters of Russia’s Fed­er­al Secu­ri­ty Ser­vice, the KGB’s suc­ces­sor and the agency where Mr Putin start­ed his career. Mr Putin has also stocked large parts of his admin­is­tra­tion with secret ser­vices alum­ni.

“At the same time, as a pro­fes­sion­al chemist, I per­fect­ly under­stand that we will not get 100 per cent proof of the guilt of the Krem­lin-Lubyan­ka killers, nei­ther from the Eng­lish spe­cial­ists, nor from the experts of the OPCW,” added Mr Uglev.

He said he did not expect the OPCW to be able to prove either where the sub­stance had been man­u­fac­tured or how it had found its way to Sal­is­bury. UK inves­ti­ga­tors would not be able to rely on meth­ods they used to trace the source of the polo­ni­um-210 that was used to mur­der the for­mer Russ­ian agent Alexan­der Litvi­nenko in Lon­don in 2006 because that was a radioac­tive sub­stance and was rel­a­tive­ly easy to detect unlike a nerve agent like A‑234, he said.

...

But Rus­sia has tried to exploit the UK government’s mishaps in com­mu­ni­ca­tion about the case. Last week it seized on a state­ment in which the head of Por­ton Down said the source of the nerve agent had not been iden­ti­fied.

One day lat­er, it unearthed a recent­ly delet­ed tweet that had been post­ed on March 22 by the UK For­eign & Com­mon­wealth Office that said Por­ton Down had iden­ti­fied the source.

Moscow has also been quick to crit­i­cise Boris John­son, the British for­eign sec­re­tary, who has assert­ed the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment was behind the attack and the poi­son had come from Rus­sia.

———-

“Sovi­et sci­en­tist backs UK over Skri­pal poi­son­ing” by Kathrin Hille; The Finan­cial Times; 04/08/2018

““I have no doubt that it was pre­cise­ly A‑234 which was used!” Mr Uglev said in com­ments emailed to the Finan­cial Times from his retire­ment home on the Black Sea coast.”

No doubt that is was pre­cise­ly A‑234! It’s a pret­ty pow­er­ful state­ment from one of the chief sci­en­tists to devel­op the novi­chok fam­i­ly of com­pounds. And it appears to be large­ly based on com­ments made by Por­ton Down sci­en­tists and oth­er infor­ma­tion he had received:

...
He said judg­ing by com­ments made by Por­ton Down sci­en­tists and oth­er infor­ma­tion he had received, the sub­stance had to be the com­pound he had first syn­the­sised in Decem­ber 1975 at the State Sci­en­tif­ic Research Insti­tute of Organ­ic Chem­istry and Tech­nol­o­gy, in the south­ern Russ­ian town of Shikhany.
...

But, again, Uglev not­ed that there’s real­ly no way to prove where the sub­stance had been man­u­fac­tured or how it was trans­port­ed to the site of the attack:

...
He said he did not expect the OPCW to be able to prove either where the sub­stance had been man­u­fac­tured or how it had found its way to Sal­is­bury. UK inves­ti­ga­tors would not be able to rely on meth­ods they used to trace the source of the polo­ni­um-210 that was used to mur­der the for­mer Russ­ian agent Alexan­der Litvi­nenko in Lon­don in 2006 because that was a radioac­tive sub­stance and was rel­a­tive­ly easy to detect unlike a nerve agent like A‑234, he said.
...

Still, open­ly nam­ing the exact com­pound, A‑234, is pret­ty notable.

It’s also pret­ty notable that Uglev is high­ly crit­i­cal of the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment, which he refers to as the “regime of Krem­lin-Lubyan­ka thieves and killers”:

...
He was also heav­i­ly crit­i­cal of Vladimir Putin, Russ­ian pres­i­dent, and his admin­is­tra­tion.

“As a Russ­ian cit­i­zen, I do not accept the great-pow­er chau­vin­ism fanned by the regime of Krem­lin-Lubyan­ka thieves and killers, and there­fore ful­ly under­stand and sup­port the pol­i­cy of the British gov­ern­ment towards Rus­sia,” Mr Uglev said.

The Lubyan­ka is the Moscow head­quar­ters of Russia’s Fed­er­al Secu­ri­ty Ser­vice, the KGB’s suc­ces­sor and the agency where Mr Putin start­ed his career. Mr Putin has also stocked large parts of his admin­is­tra­tion with secret ser­vices alum­ni.
...

And that open crit­i­cism of the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment is so notable because, as we learn in the fol­low­ing inter­view of Uglev, he nev­er left Rus­sia.

There are a num­ber of oth­er inter­est­ing things in the fol­low­ing inter­view. For instance, when Uglev refers to “novi­chok”, he is specif­i­cal­ly refer­ring to four sep­a­rate com­pounds in the fam­i­ly of organophos­phates of the hun­dreds of organophos­phates that his team researched in the 70’s and 80’s. Those four com­pounds were seen as far more lethal and effec­tive than any of the oth­er com­pounds they researched: “A‑1972”, “B‑1976”, “C‑1976”, and “D‑1980”. So A‑234 is not one of those four super-lethal com­pounds.:

The Bell

The sci­en­tist who devel­oped “Novi­chok”: “Dos­es ranged from 20 grams to sev­er­al kilos”

Svet­lana Reit­er, Natalia Gevorkyan
March 20, 2018

The Bell was able to find and speak with Vladimir Uglev, one of the sci­en­tists who was involved in devel­op­ing the nerve agent referred to as “Novi­chok”. Accord­ing to British author­i­ties, a nerve agent from the “Novi­chok” series was used to poi­son for­mer Rusian intel­li­gence agent Sergei Skri­pal and his daugh­ter, Yulia. Vladimir Uglev, for­mer­ly a sci­en­tist with Vol­sk branch of GOSNIIOKHT (“State Sci­en­tif­ic-Research Insti­tute for Organ­ic Chem­istry and Tech­nol­o­gy”), which devel­oped and test­ed pro­duc­tion of new lethal sub­stances since 1972, spoke for the first time about his work as ear­ly as the 1990s. He left the insti­tute in 1994 and is now retired.

– The Russ­ian Min­istry of For­eign Affairs insists that there was no research nor devel­op­ment of any sub­stance called “Novi­chok”, not in Rus­sia, nor in the USSR. Is that true?

– In order to make it eas­i­er to under­stand the sub­ject mat­ter, I will not use the name “Novi­chok” which has is now com­mon­ly used by every­one to describe those four sub­stances which were con­di­tion­al­ly assigned to me to devel­op over a peri­od of sev­er­al years. Three of these sub­stances are part of the “Foliant” pro­gram, which was led by Pyotr Kir­pichev, a sci­en­tist with GOSNIIOKHT (State Sci­en­tif­ic-Research Insti­tute for Organ­ic Chem­istry and Tech­nol­o­gy). The first sub­stance of a new class of organophos­pho­rous chem­i­cal agents, I will call it “A‑1972”, was devel­oped by Kir­pichev in 1972. In 1976, I devel­oped two sub­stances: “B‑1976” and “C‑1976”. The fourth sub­stance, “D‑1980”, was devel­oped by Kir­pichev in the ear­ly 1980s. All of these sub­stances fall under the group referred to as “Novichkov”, but that name wasn’t giv­en to the sub­stances by GOSNIIOKHT.

All four chem­i­cal agents are “FOS” or organophos­pho­rous com­pounds which have a nerve par­a­lyz­ing effect, but they dif­fer in their pre­cur­sors, how they were dis­cov­ered and in their usage as agents of chem­i­cal war­fare.

In the sci­en­tif­ic group led by Kir­pichev, sev­er­al hun­dred mod­i­fi­ca­tions of this class of agents were dis­cov­ered. There­fore, I can say with a high degree of cer­tain­ty that no mat­ter which new sub­stances were devel­oped, none of them exceed­ed the tox­ic prop­er­ties of those list­ed above.

One of these sub­stances was used to poi­son the banker, Ivan Kive­li­di and his sec­re­tary in 1995. A cot­ton ball, soaked in this agent, was rubbed over the micro­phone in the hand­set of Kivelidi’s tele­phone. That spe­cif­ic dose was devel­oped by my group, where we pro­duced all of the chem­i­cal agents, and each dose which we devel­oped was giv­en its own com­plete phys­i­cal-chem­i­cal pass­port. It was there­fore not dif­fi­cult to deter­mine who had pre­pared that dose and when it was devel­oped. Nat­u­ral­ly, the inves­ti­ga­tors also sus­pect­ed me. I was ques­tioned sev­er­al times about this inci­dent.

In con­trast to for­mer GOSNIIOKHT sci­en­tist Vil Mirza­yanov, who emi­grat­ed to the U.S. and is the author of the book “State Secrets: An Insider’s Chron­i­cle of the Russ­ian Chem­i­cal Weapons Pro­gram”, Uglev didn’t leave Rus­sia. Mirza­yanov gave sev­er­al inter­views over the past few days; these inter­views pro­vid­ed most of what is known about “Novi­chok”. Russ­ian author­i­ties did not offi­cial­ly con­firm the devel­op­ment of these nerve agents, actu­al­ly, quite the oppo­site: on the 17th of March, Min­istry of For­eign Affairs spokesper­son Maria Zakharo­va stat­ed that there was nev­er, not in Rus­sia, nor in the USSR, “any research which was called or had the code name ‘Novi­chok’.” Zakharo­va also named the U.S., UK and oth­er coun­tries as the most like­ly sources of the chem­i­cal agents. How­ev­er, RIA Novosti pub­lished an inter­view today with a per­son called Leonid Rink, who is also iden­ti­fied in the text as the “devel­op­er of ‘Novi­chok’.”

– For what pur­pose were the chem­i­cal agents devel­oped?

– This fell under the “Foliant” pro­gram which was ordered by the Min­istry of Defense. The agents were designed as alter­na­tive to the Sovi­et anal­o­gy of the Amer­i­can nerve agent, VX.

– Which spe­cif­ic lab­o­ra­to­ry devel­oped the chem­i­cal agent which we now refer to as “Novi­chok”?

– The Vol­sk branch of GOSNIIOKHT, which is in the Sara­tov region.

– Where was the pilot pro­duced and in what quan­ti­ty?

– In the lab­o­ra­to­ry itself. Some­times in pilot pro­duc­tion, but also using the lab­o­ra­to­ry table and equip­ment. Dos­es gen­er­al­ly ranged from 20 grams to sev­er­al kilos.

– Where was the agent stored?

– Small dos­es were stored by Pyotr Kir­pichev and myself – in our work­ing room in a met­al sealed box safe. Large dos­es were stored in a spe­cial ware­house in sealed pack­ag­ing. I don’t know any­thing else about what then hap­pened to the dos­es beyond where they were stored.

– Did you work on these agents for a long time?

– Accord­ing to my records, from 1972 until 1988.

– If a chem­i­cal agent was first syn­the­sized in the 1970s, would it be pos­si­ble that there might have been lat­er, improved ver­sions, after you stopped work­ing?

– I don’t think so. Pyotr Kirpichev’s group syn­the­sized sev­er­al hun­dred ana­logues of this series.

– It is pos­si­ble to say with con­fi­dence that Sergei Skri­pal and his daugh­ter, Yulia, were poi­soned with an agent from the “Novi­chok” series, or could it be con­fused with a nerve agent like, for exam­ple, VX (an organophos­pho­rous poi­so­nous agent first devel­oped in the UK in 1952 – The Bell)?

– It’s unlike­ly to be con­fused with VX, but with Zoman and Zarin (nerve par­a­lyz­ing gas­es – The Bell), it’s pos­si­ble, but only before the lab­o­ra­to­ry inves­ti­ga­tion has begun. The chem­i­cal agents in our, as you called it, series, are extreme­ly tena­cious.

– In a recent inter­view which he gave to “Novaya Gaze­ta”, Mirza­yanov says that a com­par­a­tive analy­sis, was most like­ly con­duct­ed using sam­ples from the vic­tims of the poi­son­ing, by com­par­ing these sam­ples with a for­mu­la which British spe­cial­ists could have tak­en from his book. Could that be true?

– If you take a for­mu­la from that book you could con­duct screen­ing for sev­er­al years. But spe­cif­ic agents and pre­cur­sors for these agents are not includ­ed in his book.

– How could the per­son who poi­soned Skri­pal and his daugh­ter have done so with­out put him­self in dan­ger?

– Agents should be trans­port­ed in a con­tain­er suit­able for com­bat use. It is like­ly that with­in this con­tain­er the chem­i­cal agents were put on some kind of car­ri­er (cot­ton balls, pow­der, ready-made poi­so­nous ele­ments). All of the container’s exter­nal sur­faces must be cov­ered in a degassing solu­tion and wiped with a sol­vent. There­fore, the per­son who car­ried out the attack does not need to defend him­self.

– The Min­istry of For­eign Affairs spokesper­son said that in order to specif­i­cal­ly iden­ti­fy the chem­i­cal agent which was used, the British author­i­ties must have had a sam­ple of the nerve agent in their pos­ses­sion. How could the British have got­ten their hands on a sam­ple?

– The British, just like the Ger­mans, are excel­lent chemists who can with one hint do what in Moscow is clas­si­fied as top secret. In addi­tion, the secret was already 20 years old in 1993. So the ques­tion should be direct­ed to those spe­cial­ists charged with pro­tect­ing state secrets: is it pos­si­ble to keep such infor­ma­tion secret with­out any leaks?

– Why is Rus­sia demand­ing that the British send a blood sam­ple from the vic­tims?

– From the remains of the chem­i­cal agents in the blood, it is pos­si­ble, with the aid of var­i­ous types of analy­ses, to deter­mine where the spe­cif­ic dose was pro­duced and by whom. I sus­pect that mod­ern meth­ods of analy­sis have even improved on what we had some 30 years ago.

– Is there even a min­i­mal chance that the vic­tims of the poi­son­ing might recov­er?

– If Skri­pal and his daugh­ter received a lethal dose of B‑1976, C‑1976, or D‑1980, then, most like­ly, they will suf­fer the same fate as ear­li­er vic­tims. There is no anti­dote to these agents. I can say with near­ly 100% cer­tain­ty that if Skri­pal and his daugh­ter are tak­en off of life sup­port, they will die, although they are now only tech­ni­cal­ly alive.

– Who could know the chem­i­cal for­mu­la for “Novi­chok”?

– In Rus­sia, I would esti­mate, sev­er­al dozen peo­ple.

– Did you ever share the for­mu­la? For exam­ple, in the media in the mid-1990s, when they were try­ing to con­firm the devel­op­ment of new chem­i­cal agents?

– I nev­er shared and I don’t intend to share the chem­i­cal for­mu­la for those agents. I nev­er said which type of chem­i­cal com­bi­na­tions they are pro­duced from. [I have said] only that they are relat­ed to the class of new gen­er­a­tion nerve par­a­lyz­ing agents.

– Why did the Orga­ni­za­tion for the Pro­hi­bi­tion of Chem­i­cal Weapons (OPCW) under the Unit­ed Nations, if one finds their min­utes from their meet­ings to be true, fail three times to find proof of pro­duc­tion of this agent (search­es began after the pub­li­ca­tion of Mirzayanov’s book in 2008)?

– It’s impos­si­ble to find a black but­ton in a dark room. More­over, the cat sim­ply wasn’t there, because there wasn’t any pro­duc­tion in the USSR, and Rus­sia then was pre­oc­cu­pied with oth­er things. The fact that the OPCW total­ly ignored our mutu­al state­ment with Mirza­yanov in 1993 about the exis­tence of agents of chem­i­cal war­fare in Rus­sia was a gross vio­la­tion of the (Chem­i­cal Weapons) Con­ven­tion, as sig­na­to­ry coun­tries to the Con­ven­tion are required to report the devel­op­ment of new sub­stances, the most pow­er­ful of which are agents of chem­i­cal war­fare (Rus­sia only signed the Chem­i­cal Weapons Con­ven­tion in 1997 – The Bell).

– The media report­ed that “Novi­chok” sup­pos­ed­ly exists as a “bina­ry weapon” – the tox­in is trans­ferred via two less dan­gers sub­stances, and when it is time to use the chem­i­cal agent, only then are the sub­stances mixed togeth­er. It has also been sug­gest­ed that “Novi­chok” could have been used for the attempt in Lon­don. Are the series of agents referred to as “Novi­chok” bina­ry weapons?

– No one ever had any bina­ry weapons. I think that sev­er­al of my col­leagues, just like I did, tried to work on this idea, but I don’t know a sin­gle bina­ry weapon, not for VX, not for oth­er types of chem­i­cal weapons. At least for the peri­od up until 1994.

– In which form do the nerve par­a­lyz­ing agents which we refer to as “Novi­chok” come in?

– Of the four sub­stances, only the last one, D‑1980, can be in pow­der form. The oth­er three are liq­uid.

– How did British sci­en­tists man­age to deter­mine that the vic­tims were poi­soned with “Novi­chok”?

– So far, I have only read the con­fir­ma­tion by There­sa May that Skri­pal and his daugh­ter were poi­soned by nerve par­a­lyz­ing agents. British sci­en­tists have not said any­thing yet.

...

———-

“The sci­en­tist who devel­oped “Novi­chok”: “Dos­es ranged from 20 grams to sev­er­al kilos”” by Svet­lana Reit­er, Natalia Gevorkyan; The Bell; 03/20/2018

“– In order to make it eas­i­er to under­stand the sub­ject mat­ter, I will not use the name “Novi­chok” which has is now com­mon­ly used by every­one to describe those four sub­stances which were con­di­tion­al­ly assigned to me to devel­op over a peri­od of sev­er­al years. Three of these sub­stances are part of the “Foliant” pro­gram, which was led by Pyotr Kir­pichev, a sci­en­tist with GOSNIIOKHT (State Sci­en­tif­ic-Research Insti­tute for Organ­ic Chem­istry and Tech­nol­o­gy). The first sub­stance of a new class of organophos­pho­rous chem­i­cal agents, I will call it “A‑1972”, was devel­oped by Kir­pichev in 1972. In 1976, I devel­oped two sub­stances: “B‑1976” and “C‑1976”. The fourth sub­stance, “D‑1980”, was devel­oped by Kir­pichev in the ear­ly 1980s. All of these sub­stances fall under the group referred to as “Novichkov”, but that name wasn’t giv­en to the sub­stances by GOSNIIOKHT.”

“A‑1972”, “B‑1976”, “C‑1976”, and “D‑1980”. Those are the four super dead­ly com­pounds Uglev’s team arrived at after test­ing sev­er­al hun­dred dif­fer­ent chem­i­cal vari­ants of this fam­i­ly of com­pounds:

...
In the sci­en­tif­ic group led by Kir­pichev, sev­er­al hun­dred mod­i­fi­ca­tions of this class of agents were dis­cov­ered. There­fore, I can say with a high degree of cer­tain­ty that no mat­ter which new sub­stances were devel­oped, none of them exceed­ed the tox­ic prop­er­ties of those list­ed above.
...

And one of these sub­stances was used to kill Ivan Kive­li­di back in 1995:

...
One of these sub­stances was used to poi­son the banker, Ivan Kive­li­di and his sec­re­tary in 1995. A cot­ton ball, soaked in this agent, was rubbed over the micro­phone in the hand­set of Kivelidi’s tele­phone. That spe­cif­ic dose was devel­oped by my group, where we pro­duced all of the chem­i­cal agents, and each dose which we devel­oped was giv­en its own com­plete phys­i­cal-chem­i­cal pass­port. It was there­fore not dif­fi­cult to deter­mine who had pre­pared that dose and when it was devel­oped. Nat­u­ral­ly, the inves­ti­ga­tors also sus­pect­ed me. I was ques­tioned sev­er­al times about this inci­dent.
...

Note that Kive­li­di had been a out­spo­ken crit­ic of the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment for not inves­ti­gat­ing the numer­ous mafia con­tract killings of Russ­ian busi­ness­men and his death was also con­sid­ered a con­tract kill. This, of course, rais­es the ques­tion of whether or not the Russ­ian mob had its hands on these sub­stances over two decades ago. It’s a point Uglev makes when he points out that this novi­chok inves­ti­ga­tion hinges on the ques­tion of whether or not its rea­son­able to think that these com­pounds devel­oped in the 70’s real­ly could remain a state secret:

...
– The Min­istry of For­eign Affairs spokesper­son said that in order to specif­i­cal­ly iden­ti­fy the chem­i­cal agent which was used, the British author­i­ties must have had a sam­ple of the nerve agent in their pos­ses­sion. How could the British have got­ten their hands on a sam­ple?

– The British, just like the Ger­mans, are excel­lent chemists who can with one hint do what in Moscow is clas­si­fied as top secret. In addi­tion, the secret was already 20 years old in 1993. So the ques­tion should be direct­ed to those spe­cial­ists charged with pro­tect­ing state secrets: is it pos­si­ble to keep such infor­ma­tion secret with­out any leaks?
...

Inter­est­ing­ly, Uglev does claim that it should be pos­si­ble to to deter­mine where the spe­cif­ic dose was pro­duced and by whom:

...
– Why is Rus­sia demand­ing that the British send a blood sam­ple from the vic­tims?

– From the remains of the chem­i­cal agents in the blood, it is pos­si­ble, with the aid of var­i­ous types of analy­ses, to deter­mine where the spe­cif­ic dose was pro­duced and by whom. I sus­pect that mod­ern meth­ods of analy­sis have even improved on what we had some 30 years ago.
...

This is, of course, very dif­fer­ent from his recent asser­tions that it would be impos­si­ble to know where the com­pound was man­u­fac­tured. But note that the above inter­view was done weeks ago, before Uglev named A‑234 as the like­ly cul­prit. So it’s worth keep­ing in mind that it’s pos­si­ble that such foren­sic analy­sis would be pos­si­ble for com­pounds like “A‑1972”, “B‑1976”, “C‑1976”, and “D‑1980” that Uglev’s team devel­oped because they would know the exact dosages or oth­er lev­els of impu­ri­ties that these com­pounds con­tained when they were made in a weaponized form. That’s part of what makes the “high puri­ty” of the sub­stance the OPCW notable from a foren­sic stand­point: the lack of impu­ri­ties could effec­tive­ly obscure the “trail” back to the source because impu­ri­ties could effec­tive­ly be the trail.

And there’s anoth­er poten­tial­ly very sig­nif­i­cant fact relat­ed to A‑234: It’s chem­i­cal for­mu­la is wide­ly avail­able. There’s even a wikipedia page on it that includes the for­mu­la. And that for­mu­la was pub­lished back in 2008 in book by Vil Mirza­yanov, anoth­er for­mer Sovi­et sci­en­tist who worked on the novi­chok pro­gram. Both Mirza­yanov and novo­chok made the news in 1994 when he open­ly talked about the pro­gram. Mirza­yanov lat­er relo­cat­ed to the US:

...
In con­trast to for­mer GOSNIIOKHT sci­en­tist Vil Mirza­yanov, who emi­grat­ed to the U.S. and is the author of the book “State Secrets: An Insider’s Chron­i­cle of the Russ­ian Chem­i­cal Weapons Pro­gram”, Uglev didn’t leave Rus­sia. Mirza­yanov gave sev­er­al inter­views over the past few days; these inter­views pro­vid­ed most of what is known about “Novi­chok”. Russ­ian author­i­ties did not offi­cial­ly con­firm the devel­op­ment of these nerve agents, actu­al­ly, quite the oppo­site: on the 17th of March, Min­istry of For­eign Affairs spokesper­son Maria Zakharo­va stat­ed that there was nev­er, not in Rus­sia, nor in the USSR, “any research which was called or had the code name ‘Novi­chok’.” Zakharo­va also named the U.S., UK and oth­er coun­tries as the most like­ly sources of the chem­i­cal agents. How­ev­er, RIA Novosti pub­lished an inter­view today with a per­son called Leonid Rink, who is also iden­ti­fied in the text as the “devel­op­er of ‘Novi­chok’.”
...

And that’s part of what makes Uglev’s strong con­clu­sion that the com­pound used against the Skri­pals was def­i­nite­ly A‑234. You can read about A‑234, and its chem­i­cal struc­ture, in Mirza­yanov’s book State Secrets: An Insid­er’s Chron­i­cle of the Russ­ian Chem­i­cal Weapons Pro­gram. It’s even acces­si­ble from the “Look inside this book” fea­ture on Ama­zon.

And again, don’t for­get what the UK chemists recent­ly warned in a Finan­cial Times arti­cle: the asser­tion that these com­pounds are ultra-sophis­ti­cat­ed is wrong. Any good chem­istry lab could do it. So if A‑234 real­ly was used in this attack it’s hard to ignore the fact that the chem­i­cal struc­ture of this com­pound was read­i­ly avail­able to any­one with inter­net access for the last decade.

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/03/clinton-state-department-discouraged-novichok-discussion.html

Appar­ent­ly, going back the H. Clin­ton’s stint at the State Depart­ment, the ques­tion of “novi­choks” was sup­pressed by the US and Brits.

Here’s a pair of arti­cle that that relates to both the novi­chok sto­ry as well as the recent charges of a chem­i­cal weapons attack in Syr­ia. And tak­en togeth­er the arti­cles raise a pro­found­ly dis­turb­ing ques­tion: did ISIS or al Nus­ra get their hands on novi­chok at some point dur­ing the Syr­i­an civ­il war?

It’s a ques­tion we have to ask because we know that a large num­ber of the Syr­i­an gov­ern­men­t’s mil­i­tary sup­plies have fall­en in rebel hands. And accord­ing to the fol­low­ing 2012 arti­cle, one of the fears of the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty was that the Syr­i­an gov­ern­ment would use the large stores of novi­chok that it was believed to pos­sess:

The Dai­ly Mail

Cor­nered and des­per­ate, will Assad unleash a cat­a­stroph­ic chem­i­cal weapon attack against Israel?

By Al Ven­ter
Pub­lished: 19:59 EDT, 23 August 2012 | Updat­ed: 07:01 EDT, 6 Sep­tem­ber 2012

Des­per­ate men will resort to des­per­ate mea­sures. And Pres­i­dent Bashar al-Assad, the ruth­less dic­ta­tor of Syr­ia, is a des­per­ate man.

Har­row­ing dai­ly reports of mur­der, rape and tor­ture have served to illus­trate just how far he will go to main­tain his total­i­tar­i­an stran­gle­hold over the coun­try and its suf­fer­ing peo­ple.

Not a day pass­es with­out claims of his army using inhu­mane and sav­age meth­ods to crush the upris­ing.

The inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty has proved pow­er­less. After months of inef­fec­tu­al note-tak­ing and diplo­ma­cy, the last remain­ing mem­bers of the Unit­ed Nations mon­i­tor­ing mis­sion left Syr­ia on Mon­day, leav­ing the coun­try to spi­ral into fur­ther vio­lence and chaos.

Now, Syria’s civ­il war could be in dan­ger of spilling over the country’s bor­ders.

For expe­ri­enced observers believe that Pres­i­dent Assad may be plot­ting a sur­prise attack against Israel in a des­per­ate attempt to dis­tract atten­tion away from his inter­nal trou­bles and trans­form him­self into a hero across the Arab world.

News has emerged this week that Syr­ia has armed the Lebanese Islamist group Hezbol­lah, which is fierce­ly hos­tile to Israel, with sev­er­al bal­lis­tic mis­siles and a num­ber of small­er rock­ets, each with a range of 150 miles — far enough to strike Tel Aviv.

The Syr­i­an gov­ern­ment has even warned that it could deploy its stock­pile of chem­i­cal weapons if ‘exposed to exter­nal aggres­sion’. Giv­en the tense state of its rela­tions with Israel, a bor­der clash or oth­er diplo­mat­ic inci­dent would be easy to fab­ri­cate.

It goes with­out say­ing that any attack on Israel could wreak destruc­tion across the region.

On Mon­day, Pres­i­dent Oba­ma threat­ened mil­i­tary action if Syr­ia used its mas­sive stock­pile of chem­i­cal weapons. He talked chill­ing­ly of a ‘red line’ that must not be crossed. It was his most out­spo­ken and force­ful state­ment since the upris­ing began 18 months ago.

The U.S. Pres­i­dent declared: ‘We can­not have a sit­u­a­tion in which chem­i­cal or bio­log­i­cal weapons are falling into the hands of the wrong peo­ple.

‘We’ve been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to the oth­er play­ers on the ground, that a red line for us is if we start see­ing a whole bunch of chem­i­cal weapons mov­ing around or being utilised.’

Forty-eight hours lat­er, David Cameron had a phone call with Oba­ma, dur­ing which they agreed that the use of chem­i­cal weapons in Syr­ia, or even a threat to deploy them, would be ‘com­plete­ly unac­cept­able’.

The great fear of the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty is that Assad could try to inflame ten­sions between the Arab states and Israel by fir­ing his arse­nal of Scud‑C mis­siles, each one tipped with chem­i­cal weapon­ry, at Israeli cities such as Haifa or Tel Aviv.

More wor­ry­ing still is the prospect that Assad could use Novi­chok — the dead­liest nerve agent yet devel­oped by man — which the regime is believed to have amassed in large quan­ti­ties.

This Russ­ian-designed chem­i­cal weapon, eight times more potent than the estab­lished nerve gasses sarin, VX and tabun, is so pow­er­ful that it ren­ders gas masks and chem­i­cal pro­tec­tion out­fits utter­ly use­less.

If Assad were to launch such an unpro­voked attack on neigh­bour­ing Israel, it would serve two purposes.First, it would deflect the world’s focus from his cal­lous treat­ment of his own coun­try­men.

Sec­ond, it would be to set­tle scores with an old ene­my. And if he were to fall, at least he would go down in what, for him, would be a blaze of dement­ed glo­ry.

Of course, any attack would inevitably solic­it a heavy Israeli retal­i­a­tion.

....

———-

“Cor­nered and des­per­ate, will Assad unleash a cat­a­stroph­ic chem­i­cal weapon attack against Israel?” by Al Ven­ter; The Dai­ly Mail; 08/23/2012

“More wor­ry­ing still is the prospect that Assad could use Novi­chok — the dead­liest nerve agent yet devel­oped by man — which the regime is believed to have amassed in large quan­ti­ties.”

That was the report­ed major fear in 2012: Assad was believed to pos­sess a large quan­ti­ties of novi­chok and he just might use it.

And that brings us to the next obvi­ous ques­tion regard­ing who has access to novi­chok: so did any of the rebel groups in Syr­ia get their hands on it? Because as the fol­low­ing arti­cle reminds us, those rebels groups, in par­tic­u­lar ISIS and al Nus­ra, def­i­nite­ly got their hands on stores of Syr­i­an gov­ern­ment chem­i­cal weapons and used them:

For­eign Pol­i­cy

How the Islam­ic State Seized a Chem­i­cal Weapons Stock­pile
When jihadists cap­tured a Syr­i­an mil­i­tary base, they found a cache of some of the world’s most dan­ger­ous weapons buried in its bunkers. In Part II of an exclu­sive series, an Islam­ic State mem­ber explains how they even­tu­al­ly fell into the hands of the self-styled “caliphate.”

By Har­ald Doorn­bos, Jenan Mous­sa
August 17, 2016

Since its cre­ation, we have learned about the Islam­ic State from its ene­mies. Its sto­ry has large­ly been told by those fight­ing the group in Iraq and Syr­ia, trau­ma­tized civil­ians who have escaped its bru­tal rule, and the occa­sion­al defec­tor. That is about to change. This is the sto­ry of Abu Ahmad, a Syr­i­an oper­a­tive for the Islam­ic State who wit­nessed the group’s light­ning expan­sion first­hand and spent months among its most noto­ri­ous for­eign fight­ers.

In this series of three arti­cles, he pro­vides unique insight into how Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s polit­i­cal schem­ing paved the way for its expan­sion into Syr­ia, al Qaeda’s efforts to stem the group’s rise, and the ter­ri­fy­ing weapons in the arse­nal of the self-pro­claimed “caliphate.” Some names and details have been omit­ted to pro­tect Abu Ahmad. Read part one here and part three here.

Abu Ahmed told us how the Islam­ic State of Iraq and the Lev­ant (ISIS) came to acquire some of the world’s most fear­some weapons, which were claimed as spoils of war from Syr­i­an Pres­i­dent Bashar al-Assad’s forces months before its cre­ation.

Rough­ly four months before the split between the Nus­ra Front and ISIS, in Decem­ber 2012, dozens of Syr­i­an jiha­di fight­ers climbed a hill toward Reg­i­ment 111 — a large army base near the town of Darat Izza, in north­ern Syr­ia. That town had been tak­en rough­ly five months ear­li­er by a coali­tion of rebel groups. But while they had besieged Reg­i­ment 111 since the sum­mer of 2012, they still had not suc­ceed­ed in cap­tur­ing the base from the troops loy­al to Pres­i­dent Assad.

...

Syr­i­an Army sol­diers inside Reg­i­ment 111 suc­cess­ful­ly defend­ed their base dur­ing the first rebel attack in ear­ly Novem­ber 2012, killing 18 Nus­ra fight­ers in the process. But the cold Decem­ber wind only for­ti­fied the rebels’ resolve. The base was a gold­mine: home to guns, artillery, ammu­ni­tion, and vehi­cles. And deep inside Reg­i­ment 111’s bunkers lay some­thing even more valu­able — a cache of chem­i­cal weapons.

The attack was led by the Nus­ra Front and sup­port­ed main­ly by Kataib Muha­jiri al-Sham, a unit with­in Liwa al-Islam; Majlis Shu­ra al-Mujahideen; and Kat­i­bat al-Bat­tar, which con­sist­ed large­ly of Libyan jihadis. The fight­ers knew that the base pos­sessed ammu­ni­tion and oth­er weapons, but did not know in advance it con­tained chem­i­cal weapons.

As the rebels climbed the hills near Reg­i­ment 111, intense fight­ing erupt­ed. “That day, all of us were full of excite­ment and revenge,” Abu Ahmad told us. “Every­body want­ed to avenge the 18 Nus­ra broth­ers who were mar­tyred dur­ing the first attack. Peo­ple were scream­ing: ‘This time we will con­quer it!’”

With­in a day, the com­bined jiha­di forces had bro­ken through the lines of the Syr­i­an Army. Short­ly after, Reg­i­ment 111 was ful­ly under jiha­di con­trol. They found large stocks of weapons, ammu­ni­tion and, to their sur­prise, chem­i­cal agents. They were, accord­ing to Abu Ahmad, main­ly bar­rels filled with chlo­rine, sarin, and mus­tard gas.

What fol­lowed was the dis­tri­b­u­tion of the war spoils. Every­body took some ammu­ni­tion and weapons. But only the Nus­ra Front seized the chem­i­cal weapons. Abu Ahmad watched as the al Qae­da affil­i­ate called in 10 large car­go trucks, loaded 15 con­tain­ers with chlo­rine and sarin gas, and drove them away to an unknown des­ti­na­tion. He did not see what hap­pened to the mus­tard gas.

Three months lat­er, both the Syr­i­an gov­ern­ment and rebel groups report­ed an attack in Khan al-Assal, near Alep­po. The inter­na­tion­al media said that 26 peo­ple had been killed, among them 16 regime sol­diers and 10 civil­ians. Both the Syr­i­an regime and oppo­si­tion claimed that chem­i­cal weapons had been used — and both accused the oth­er of hav­ing car­ried out one of the first chem­i­cal weapons attacks in the Syr­i­an war.

Abu Ahmad kept his mouth shut in pub­lic, but pri­vate­ly he and some of his Syr­i­an jiha­di com­rades dis­cussed the mat­ter. Although they did not have any evi­dence, they won­dered whether the mate­r­i­al used in the Khan al-Assal attack had been tak­en from Reg­i­ment 111. He knew he couldn’t ask Abu al-Atheer for clar­i­fi­ca­tion. By now he had learned one of the gold­en rules of the secre­tive jiha­di move­ment: When it’s none of your busi­ness, keep qui­et.

“Among our peo­ple, it is not done to ask,” Abu Ahmad told us.

That would be the end of the issue for the next eight months. Begin­ning in April 2013, Abu Ahmad and his com­rades would be pre­oc­cu­pied with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s expan­sion into Syr­ia, and the esca­lat­ing ten­sions between the new­ly-cre­at­ed ISIS and the Nus­ra Front. It was a con­fused time in the Syr­i­an jiha­di world: Many fac­tions with­in the Nus­ra Front were break­ing off to join ISIS, while the al Qae­da affil­i­ate worked fever­ish­ly to main­tain loy­al­ty with­in its ranks. Ter­ri­to­ry, bases, and weapons were up for grabs like nev­er before.

But in mid-August 2013, Abu Ahmed received news that made him think that ISIS had emerged from the split with the Nus­ra Front in pos­ses­sion of the chem­i­cal weapons seized at Reg­i­ment 111 — and that it was now using them against its ene­mies.

Out of the blue, Abu al-Atheer, the man to whom Abu Ahmed had pledged loy­al­ty — and who had in turn pledged loy­al­ty direct­ly to Bagh­da­di — told his own com­man­ders that ISIS had twice used chem­i­cals dur­ing attacks against the Syr­i­an Army. The announce­ment came dur­ing a nor­mal con­ver­sa­tion between Abu al-Atheer and his men; the ISIS com­man­der told the sto­ry hap­pi­ly and proud­ly.

“The broth­ers sent a car bomb with chem­i­cals to a [Syr­i­an Army] check­point near al-Ham­ra vil­lage in Hama,” Abu al-Atheer claimed, as they sat in their head­quar­ters.

Al-Ham­ra is locat­ed rough­ly 20 miles north­east of the city of Hama. It is still con­trolled by forces loy­al to the Syr­i­an gov­ern­ment.

Abu al-Atheer spoke of anoth­er ISIS chem­i­cal attack. “We also used one car bomb filled with chem­i­cals against regime forces near to Menagh Air­base,” he said. Menagh Air­base is locat­ed rough­ly 20 miles north of Alep­po. After a year-long siege, on Aug. 5, 2013, Menagh Air­base was even­tu­al­ly over­run by jihadis led by ISIS.

Again, Abu Ahmed thought back to that cold Decem­ber day when jiha­di fight­ers over­ran Reg­i­ment 111. Were these the same chem­i­cal weapons that he and his com­rades had found stock­piled in the base back then?

Whether they are or not, the Islam­ic State appears to still have these weapons in their arse­nal. More than two years lat­er, on Oct. 6, 2015, the New York Times pub­lished an arti­cle describ­ing how the Islam­ic State used chem­i­cal weapons against mod­er­ate rebel fight­ers in the north­ern town of Marea. Accord­ing to the Times, the group fired pro­jec­tiles that deliv­ered “sul­fur mus­tard.” This sub­stance is more com­mon­ly known as mus­tard gas.

The Dutch-Turk­ish jiha­di Sal­ih Yil­maz, a for­mer sol­dier in the Dutch Army who has joined IS, admit­ted on Aug. 31, 2015, on his now defunct blog that Islam­ic State indeed used chem­i­cal weapons there. Yil­maz was asked by a read­er of his blog “why did they accuse [the Islam­ic State] of recent­ly using chem­i­cal weapons in Alep­po province?”

Yil­maz respond­ed by writ­ing: “Where do you think IS got their chem­i­cal weapons from? From our ene­mies — and thus we use their own weapons against them.”

———-

“How the Islam­ic State Seized a Chem­i­cal Weapons Stock­pile” by Har­ald Doorn­bos, Jenan Mous­sa; For­eign Pol­i­cy; 08/17/2016

“With­in a day, the com­bined jiha­di forces had bro­ken through the lines of the Syr­i­an Army. Short­ly after, Reg­i­ment 111 was ful­ly under jiha­di con­trol. They found large stocks of weapons, ammu­ni­tion and, to their sur­prise, chem­i­cal agents. They were, accord­ing to Abu Ahmad, main­ly bar­rels filled with chlo­rine, sarin, and mus­tard gas.”

And this is just the sto­ry of one Syr­i­an army base that was over­run by the rebels: they found bar­rels filled with chlo­rine, sarin, and mus­tard gas. And al Nus­ra took it all took it all, accord­ing to the ISIS source for this sto­ry, Abu Ahmad.

And then three months lat­er there’s a chem­i­cal weapons attack:

...
What fol­lowed was the dis­tri­b­u­tion of the war spoils. Every­body took some ammu­ni­tion and weapons. But only the Nus­ra Front seized the chem­i­cal weapons. Abu Ahmad watched as the al Qae­da affil­i­ate called in 10 large car­go trucks, loaded 15 con­tain­ers with chlo­rine and sarin gas, and drove them away to an unknown des­ti­na­tion. He did not see what hap­pened to the mus­tard gas.

Three months lat­er, both the Syr­i­an gov­ern­ment and rebel groups report­ed an attack in Khan al-Assal, near Alep­po. The inter­na­tion­al media said that 26 peo­ple had been killed, among them 16 regime sol­diers and 10 civil­ians. Both the Syr­i­an regime and oppo­si­tion claimed that chem­i­cal weapons had been used — and both accused the oth­er of hav­ing car­ried out one of the first chem­i­cal weapons attacks in the Syr­i­an war.
...

And while Abu Ahmad and his fel­low jihdis were left won­der­ing whether or not chem­i­cal weapons seized from that base were the same weapons used the Khan al-Assal attack sev­er­al months lat­er, Ahmad did get con­fir­ma­tion from one of his com­man­ders that ISIS was indeed employ­ing chem­i­cal weapons in their attacks. And was in the midst of the split between al Nus­ra and ISIS, con­vinc­ing Ahmad that ISIS had indeed got its hand on those chem­i­cal weapons:

...
Abu Ahmad kept his mouth shut in pub­lic, but pri­vate­ly he and some of his Syr­i­an jiha­di com­rades dis­cussed the mat­ter. Although they did not have any evi­dence, they won­dered whether the mate­r­i­al used in the Khan al-Assal attack had been tak­en from Reg­i­ment 111. He knew he couldn’t ask Abu al-Atheer for clar­i­fi­ca­tion. By now he had learned one of the gold­en rules of the secre­tive jiha­di move­ment: When it’s none of your busi­ness, keep qui­et.

“Among our peo­ple, it is not done to ask,” Abu Ahmad told us.

That would be the end of the issue for the next eight months. Begin­ning in April 2013, Abu Ahmad and his com­rades would be pre­oc­cu­pied with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s expan­sion into Syr­ia, and the esca­lat­ing ten­sions between the new­ly-cre­at­ed ISIS and the Nus­ra Front. It was a con­fused time in the Syr­i­an jiha­di world: Many fac­tions with­in the Nus­ra Front were break­ing off to join ISIS, while the al Qae­da affil­i­ate worked fever­ish­ly to main­tain loy­al­ty with­in its ranks. Ter­ri­to­ry, bases, and weapons were up for grabs like nev­er before.

But in mid-August 2013, Abu Ahmed received news that made him think that ISIS had emerged from the split with the Nus­ra Front in pos­ses­sion of the chem­i­cal weapons seized at Reg­i­ment 111 — and that it was now using them against its ene­mies.

Out of the blue, Abu al-Atheer, the man to whom Abu Ahmed had pledged loy­al­ty — and who had in turn pledged loy­al­ty direct­ly to Bagh­da­di — told his own com­man­ders that ISIS had twice used chem­i­cals dur­ing attacks against the Syr­i­an Army. The announce­ment came dur­ing a nor­mal con­ver­sa­tion between Abu al-Atheer and his men; the ISIS com­man­der told the sto­ry hap­pi­ly and proud­ly.

“The broth­ers sent a car bomb with chem­i­cals to a [Syr­i­an Army] check­point near al-Ham­ra vil­lage in Hama,” Abu al-Atheer claimed, as they sat in their head­quar­ters.
...

And Ahmad’s com­mand told him about even more chem­i­cal weapon attacks by ISIS:

...
Abu al-Atheer spoke of anoth­er ISIS chem­i­cal attack. “We also used one car bomb filled with chem­i­cals against regime forces near to Menagh Air­base,” he said. Menagh Air­base is locat­ed rough­ly 20 miles north of Alep­po. After a year-long siege, on Aug. 5, 2013, Menagh Air­base was even­tu­al­ly over­run by jihadis led by ISIS.

Again, Abu Ahmed thought back to that cold Decem­ber day when jiha­di fight­ers over­ran Reg­i­ment 111. Were these the same chem­i­cal weapons that he and his com­rades had found stock­piled in the base back then?
...

And, final­ly, we have the state­ments from Sal­ih Yil­maz, a for­mer sol­dier in the Dutch Army who has joined ISIS, that ISIS did indeed employ chem­i­cal weapons seized from the Syr­i­an gov­ern­ment:

...
The Dutch-Turk­ish jiha­di Sal­ih Yil­maz, a for­mer sol­dier in the Dutch Army who has joined IS, admit­ted on Aug. 31, 2015, on his now defunct blog that Islam­ic State indeed used chem­i­cal weapons there. Yil­maz was asked by a read­er of his blog “why did they accuse [the Islam­ic State] of recent­ly using chem­i­cal weapons in Alep­po province?”

Yil­maz respond­ed by writ­ing: “Where do you think IS got their chem­i­cal weapons from? From our ene­mies — and thus we use their own weapons against them.”

And while it’s sus­pect­ed by Abu Ahmad that the chem­i­cal weapons used by ISIS were the same ones seized by al Nus­ra dur­ing that attack on the Syr­i­an gov­ern­ment base, it’s not as if there prob­a­bly weren’t plen­ty of oth­er chem­i­cal weapons stores like that so we should prob­a­bly assume al Nus­ra and its fel­low jihadist groups still have these weapons on their pos­ses­sion.

Which, again, rais­es the ques­tion: did ISIS or al Nus­ra or some oth­er Syr­i­an rebel group get is hands on novi­chok? The cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence is chill­ing­ly com­pelling.

It has not been clear to me why, if Assad’s forces are win­ning the war they would stoop to using chem­i­cal weapons on civi­lans, who are not a mil­i­tary threat. Futher­more, why would a mil­i­tary pow­er like Rus­sia who clear­ly con­trols their own stock­pile of chem­i­cal weapons want these used. Per­haps there are ques­tions as to what has hap­pend or if there were chem­i­cal weapons, if they were used as a provo­ca­tion.

On anoth­er issue involv­ing bio­log­i­cal weapons alleged­ly used by Rus­sia to seek revenge on a dou­ble agent who was a trai­tor, This brief AP arti­cle offers oth­er pos­si­bil­i­ties than it was due to Rus­sia. Remem­ber that Great Britain would not share sam­ples with the Rus­sians as they had request­ed, which would enable for them to per­form their own inves­ti­ga­tion,

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/russia-trace-western-made-nerve-agent-uk-samples-54468326

Rus­sia: Trace of West­ern-made nerve agent seen in UK sam­ples

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS MOSCOW — Apr 14, 2018, 12:24 PM ET

Rus­si­a’s for­eign min­is­ter says Moscow has received a doc­u­ment from a Swiss lab that ana­lyzed the sam­ples in the nerve agent poi­son­ing of an ex-Russ­ian spy, which points at a West­ern-designed nerve agent as a like­ly cause.

Min­is­ter Sergey Lavrov said Sat­ur­day that Moscow received the con­fi­den­tial infor­ma­tion from the lab­o­ra­to­ry in Spiez, Switzer­land, that ana­lyzed sam­ples from the site of the March 4 poi­son­ing of Sergei Skri­pal and his daugh­ter in the Eng­lish city of Sal­is­bury.

He said the analy­sis was done at the request of the Orga­ni­za­tion for the Pro­hi­bi­tion of Chem­i­cal Weapons.

The OPCW’s report con­firmed British find­ings that the Skri­pals were poi­soned with a mil­i­tary-grade nerve agent, but did­n’t say who was respon­si­ble.

Britain has accused Rus­sia of poi­son­ing them with a Sovi­et-designed agent, an accu­sa­tion that Moscow denies.

Lavrov said the doc­u­ment indi­cat­ed that the sam­ples from Sal­is­bury con­tained BZ nerve agent and its pre­cur­sor. He said BZ was part of chem­i­cal arse­nals of the U.S., Britain and oth­er NATO coun­tries, while the Sovi­et Union and Rus­sia nev­er devel­oped the agent.

Lavrov added that the Swiss lab also point­ed at the pres­ence of the nerve agent A234 in the sam­ples, but added that the lab not­ed that its pres­ence in the sam­ples appeared strange, giv­en the sub­stance’s high volatil­i­ty and the rel­a­tive­ly long peri­od between the poi­son­ing and the sam­ple-tak­ing.

He not­ed that OPCW’s report did­n’t con­tain any men­tion of BZ, adding that Rus­sia will ask the chem­i­cal weapons watch­dog for an expla­na­tion.

Britain said that the A234 agent belonged to the fam­i­ly of Sovi­et-designed nerve agents dubbed Novi­chok.

Yulia Skri­pal, 33, was released from the hos­pi­tal this week. Her father remains hos­pi­tal­ized but British health offi­cials say he is improv­ing.