Rails emerge as top terrorist target.FIRST MADRID, THEN LONDON, and most recently, Bombay. These recent incidents of train bombings have underscored their value to terrorists as soft targets. Not to be forgotten is the 1995 release of satin gas in the Tokyo subway The Tokyo subway is an integral part of the world's most extensive rapid transit system in a single metropolitan area, Greater Tokyo. While the subway system itself is largely within the city center, the lines extend far out via extensive through services onto suburban railway by the doomsday cult, Aura Shinrikyo. The recent book "The One Percent Doctrine" by author Ron Suskind reports that al-Oaida plotted, then abandoned plans to release cyanide gas in the New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of subway. Almost forgotten is that Aura attempted to use cyanide gas in the weeks following the satin attack. Members of the cult who were on the run planted a relatively simple device in a men's restroom only a foot from a ventilation duct that led to a crowded platform at Shinjuku Station, the nation's busiest passenger hub. The chemical bomb was set up to mix sulfuric acid sulfuric acid, chemical compound, H2SO4, colorless, odorless, extremely corrosive, oily liquid. It is sometimes called oil of vitriol. Concentrated Sulfuric Acid with sodium cyanide as soon as a flame ate through two condoms packed with the compounds. It was seconds away from spreading a deadly cloud, but station attendants threw water on the flames and avoided a second catastrophe. The two gasses would have produced hydrogen cyanide hydrogen cyanide, HCN, colorless, volatile, and extremely poisonous chemical compound whose vapors have a bitter almond odor. It melts at −14°C; and boils at 26°C;. It is miscible in all proportions with water or ethanol and is soluble in ether. , the same concoction the Nazis used at their World War II concentration camps. Nerve gasses, as experts point out, are not easy to manufacture. Aura Shinrikyo amassed millions of dollars in assets, and recruited chemical engineering graduates from Japan's most prestigious universities to pull off the satin attack. Even so, the batch of satin released was diluted and the perpetrators were reduced to punching holes with sharpened umbrella tips in plastic bags to spread it in rush hour subway cars. The categorization of nerve gas nerve gas, any of several poison gases intended for military use, e.g., tabun, sarin, soman, and VX. Nerve gases were first developed by Germany during World War II but were not used at that time. as a weapon of mass destruction weapon of mass destruction (WMD) Weapon with the capacity to inflict death and destruction indiscriminately and on a massive scale. The term has been in currency since at least 1937, when it was used to describe massed formations of bomber aircraft. makes it an effective tool for terror. The Tokyo attack killed 11, injured hundreds and sent shockwaves through Japanese society, whose populace generally believed the nation to be immune from such attacks. Explosives, on the other hand, are relatively cheap and easy to obtain. The London and Madrid bombings were said to cost $1,000 and $2,000 respectively. A few weeks after Suskind's book was released, the FBI alleged that it had foiled a plot by eight overseas operatives to detonate det·o·nate intr. & tr.v. det·o·nat·ed, det·o·nat·ing, det·o·nates To explode or cause to explode. [Latin d explosives in New York commuter train tunnels beneath the Hudson River. Trains, subways and the Big Apple are clearly still in the terrorists' sights. |
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