Newsmonster has built a chemical weapons factory in Central London for less than £300. With little more than two weeks work we amassed an armoury of chemicals capable of killing thousands of people. The investigation has revealed gaping holes in security as all of the equipment was bought anonymously with cash and no questions were asked. The factory could produce:

- Enough ricin to kill hundreds of people.

- Sufficient mustard gas to choke and maim thousands.

- Phosgene gas in sufficient quantities every week to burn and suffocate thousands of people.

- Nerve gasses that could paralyse a city with fear.

A raw material for producing ricin was bought from the high-street shop Boots. The main ingredient for making a “home-brew” nerve gas was bought from the supermarket Safeway. Most of the equipment for the weapons factory was bought from AJ Cope, a London-based company supplying schools with lab equipment.

Another school supplies company, RL Slaughter, sold us the raw materials for making the poison gas phosgene. Only one firm, the London Swimming Pool Company, which supplies pool cleaning chemicals, asked any questions.

Garth Whitty, a former chemical weapons inspector in Iraq, said: “The fact that it proved so easy is very very worrying.

“There are plenty of chemicals and agricultural pesticides which can be used to make weapons. It’s very difficult to stop fanatics from getting hold of them and converting them into weapons. I’d like to think it was a little harder than this though.”

Our investigation discovered that recipes for making terror-weapons are available on the Internet for only £3. One site offered to sell the us recipes for sarin gas. This nerve gas killed 12 people and injured over 3,800 when the Aum Shinrikyo sect attacked the Tokyo underground in 1995. The same site also sold plans for making cyanide gas, an assortment of nerve gases, and poisons made from garden plants. Guides for producing biological weapons such as Anthrax were available.

The sales pitch for one recipe promised: “Nerve gas is excellent….. nothing more than bug spray for people. It could be considered a weapon of mass destruction just like an atom bomb. With nerve gas one can easily knock out a small town or even a city.”

We bought recipes for making mustard gas, phosgene, ricin and a simple nerve gas based on farm pesticides. To hide our identity from the authorities, we paid anonymously using electronic money.

The factory for producing the weapons was built in a normal kitchen for less than £300. Most of the equipment was bought from AJ Cope, a small laboratory supply company. No questions were asked. Other equipment was bought from high street shops or cannibalised from kitchen appliances.

All of the chemicals were bought anonymously with cash (we will not go into details here of the chemicals we bought). To avoid suspicion, the chemicals were purchased from several different companies. Only one, Sigma-Aldrich, refused to deal with us. Other chemicals vital for producing weapons were bought from high street shops and agricultural suppliers.

Castor beans – the raw material for producing ricin - were bought on an Internet auction site. Again, no questions were asked when we bought 1,000 castor beans. Most people buy them in packets of six.

To hide our tracks from the authorities, all research was done in public libraries and Internet cafes. Payphones were used to order chemicals and equipment.

A simple explosive made from garden fertiliser – often used by the IRA to devastating effect – was made to disperse the weapons. An even easier way would be to contaminate the air conditioning system of an office block. Food could be contaminated with poisons such as ricin. Suicide bombers could disperse poison gases by hand.

“A attack on London is likely to happen,” says Dr Mustafa Alani, an expert on Islamic extremism at the Royal United Services Institute.

“It is likely to come from a small amateur group. They will go for a soft target such as the London Underground using simple chemical weapons. They will claim to be Muslims but there is no basis in Islam for attacking British civilians.”

Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammad, spiritual leader of the fringe Islamic group al-Muhajiroun, claims that a handful of Muslims are planning suicide attacks on Britain.

“There are people in the UK,” he said. “They are supporters of al-Qaeda. "I would be careful. Do not go into government buildings. Do not be in any financial institutions."

And a spokesman for Abu Hamza, the radical Islamic cleric has warned that “Britain would go down with America”.

The weapons that could have been made in the Newsmonster laboratory would have caused horrific casualties.

The most easily produced - and the most frightening - is phosgene. This corrosive gas was used in the First World War to kill tens of thousands of troops, whose deaths were recorded with horrifying clarity by the poet Wilfred Owen.

The gas smells like a freshly mown lawn. Once inhaled it begins to dissolve the lungs. Death follows within a day as the victim’s lungs slowly fill with fluid.

Mustard gas could have been made with ease. It was used in the First World War to kill tens of thousands of troops. The gas burns the skin, lungs and eyes, eventually turning them into huge blisters. Death usually follows within hours.

Our factory could have produced huge quantities of ricin. This white tasteless powder kills in tiny amounts – just a few hundredths of a gram is enough. It destroys the liver within a few days of being swallowed. Although easy to make, ricin has to be swallowed before it can kill, so terrorists could use it only to contaminate food.

Nerve gases could have been produced in our factory. These are ideal terror weapons that kill with devastating speed. Victims first become faint, start to be violently sick, then agonising convulsions set in. After a few minutes the victims stop breathing. Experts say they cannot imagine a worse way to die.

The Home Office says that Britain is prepared for a chemical attack. It claims that it is impractical to ban the sale of many of the chemicals obtained by us.

“They have completely legitimate industrial, commercial or household uses,” said a spokesman for the Home Office.

“To ban them would be doing the terrorists job for them by inconveniencing industry and creating economic disruption. What we have done is ensure that there are adequate laws to deter and punish those who wish to harm others by producing or using chemical or biological weapons.

“The UK now has some of the most stringent anti-terrorist laws in the world.”

Editorial

Take a pound of castor beans and blend with a solvent bought from your local chemist. Strain the liquid through a coffee filter and collect the liquid. Add a commonly available acid until the liquid turns milky. Allow to settle. You now have enough ricin to murder a hundred people.   

If this sounds disturbingly easy, it is. Welcome to the world of the kitchen-sink terrorist. A world where you can construct a weapon of “catastrophic effect” with easily available chemicals.

An attack on the London Underground would not cause widespread devastation. It would not kill thousands or even hundreds of people. Even the most pessimistic experts say that only a few dozen people, at most, would die. The catastrophe would come from people’s reaction to the attack. Fear would paralyse the city. The underground would be deserted. Those brave – or rational enough – to return to work would find the streets crammed with over-loaded cars and buses. Terrorism would have won.

For these reasons chemical weapons are ideal for terrorists. They are useless in battle but they have a huge psychological impact. This is why Al-Qaeda is believed to be working on them.

There is huge amount that can be done to stop terrorists from building these weapons. Chemicals should not be sold to unknown individuals for cash. Solvents should only be sold to registered companies – and never for untraceable cash. Without solvents, chemical weapons are impossible. Several chemicals bought by me had no conceivable use for an individual. Their only use was for manufacturing plastics, drugs and chemical weapons. Why was I sold them without a single question being asked? One way of stopping the terrorists would be to flood the Internet with false recipes for weapons – ones that either wouldn’t work or would kill the terrorist if he tried.

A more peaceful solution might be to employ computer hackers to attack and destroy these sites. American websites may be protected by the constitutional right to free speech but that doesn’t mean that British hackers can’t close them down. The American authorities would not care and such an attack could not be traced.  

Who Would Attack the West?

- Al-Qaeda: According to experts at the Royal United Services Institute, Al-Qaeda has been broken and scattered by the west’s war on terror. Arab governments have crushed cells operating in the Middle East. It now has very limited capabilities. It is known to have worked on chemical weapons, including ricin.

- Hizb ut-Tahrir: This Islamic group is active on University campuses across the UK and the world. It advocates the stoning to death of adulterers and single mothers, and the slaying of gays. Although its members frequently attack gays, lesbians and “non-believers” they are thought unlikely to have the capacity – or the will – to launch a chemical attack. 

- al-Muhajiroun: Led from the UK by Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammad, Al-Muhajiroun wants to convert Britain into an Islamic state governed by Sharia law. It hailed the September 11 attacks as a “towering day in history”. It says that attacks on Britain are legitimate – but not by Muslims based in Britain. Terrorism experts believe that the organisation is unlikely to launch a chemical attack but its preachings could encourage others to do so. Richard Reid aka the “shoe-bomber” Is thought to have been influenced by the teachings of al-Muhajiroun

- Islamic splinter groups: According to Royal United Services Institute a small radical Islamic cell is the most likely group to launch an attack. Its members probably come from North Africa, have failed to integrate into Britain, and hate the West. Such splinter cells are being constantly hunted by the authorities. Dr Mustafa Alani of the Royal United Services Institute says that for many “their freedom is numbered in days and they are getting desperate”.

- Lone psychopath: The anthrax attacks in the United States are believed to be the work of a lone psychopath – or a renegade Government scientist. It is possible that someone in the UK may want to launch a chemical attack. He or she probably would not motivated by religion but driven by an extreme political ideology. The risk is impossible to assess.

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