Chechens testing Chemical Weapons?

The Financial Times today has a story about how terrorists are “plotting to use chemical weapons in Europe.” French officials, apparently, have evidence linking Chechens (among others) to these plots.

“The Pakistani element [in developing these weapons] was also totally underestimated, as was the experience developed in Chechnya,” said the French official. He added that militants within the Pakistani Islamist group Lashkar-i-Toiba, which has close links to al-Qaeda, had helped develop chemical weapons skills now dispersed to several parts of the al-Qaeda network.

“The thing that is most clear is that the people with the knowledge of chemicals are very organised,” the French official said. “There are links between the groups that have chemical expertise. These groups are not present everywhere, though Chechnya is where they learned this skill.”

Russia is denying that Chechens have the capability to use chemical weapons.

“The issue of rebels getting hold of chemical weapons has been under federal troops’ scrutiny since the first days of the counter-terrorism operation. All possible measures are being taken to prevent rebels from obtaining chemical materials that can be used in chemical weapons,” Shabalkin said.

“No instances of rebel groups using chemical weapons in Chechnya have been reported since the start of the counter- terrorism operation, except for an incident when rebels blew up a cistern with chlorine during fights in Grozny,” the spokesman said.

This is unsurprising really, as to admit it would be to admit that Russia has very little control over Chechnya.

However, in this case, I think the Russians are right. The idea that Chechnya itself is a training ground for the use of chemical weapons is pretty laughable. The place is a war-zone, crawling with Russian troops. I’m not suggesting that the Russian’s are in anything approaching control of Chechnya, but their presence makes it prohibitively difficult for the Chechens to spend time training in the use of a new, relatively technologically advanced weapon. And, besides, Chechens have more important priorities on their minds at the moment than developing chemical weapons when good old fashioned bombs are already proving themselves very effective weapons in their terror war with Russia.

Also dubious is the idea that Chechens are planning to attack high profile Russian targets in Europe. Why bother? Why go to all the expense and effort to hit Russian targets outside of Russia when there is an almost infinite number of high value targets in Russia itself.

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