KUWAIT CITY, KUWAIT - DECEMBER 13: Czech soldiers in chemical protection suits take part in a chemical attack response drill conducted at the U.S. Embassy by civil defense authorities and troops from the United States, Germany, and Czech Republic December 13, 2002 in Kuwait City, Kuwait. The exercise, dubbed 'Event Horizon,' was staged to test the coordinated emergency response to a mock attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait by terrorists using deadly sarin nerve gas.
What are nerve agents like Novichok and how do they kill?
01:34 - Source: CNN

Editor’s Note: Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former British army officer, is director of Doctors Under Fire, a campaign against attacks on hospitals in war zones. He is also the Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear adviser to the Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations (CBRN). The views expressed in this commentary are his own.

CNN  — 

In March 2018, the Novichok attack in Salisbury, England, saw chemical weapons used on UK soil for the first time in history.

In Syria, there have been at least eight documented chemical attacks carried out by President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in the past 12 months – most recently, the devastating chemical attack on Douma.

In the last seven years, there have been over 100 documented uses of chemical weapons by both the regime and ISIS. The UN’s inspectors, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), have been called on to investigate some of these attacks, but the Russians have obstructed their ability to do so.

But despite Russia’s best efforts to stall and to clean up the Douma site, the OPCW has been able to confirm that it was a chemical attack.

I have investigated many attacks in Syria as part of my work with the CBRN Task Force, which treats casualties and collects evidence in crisis areas.

In April 2014, I published the results of our investigation into the attacks on Kafr Zita and Talemenes in the Daily Telegraph newspaper. Our evidence proved unequivocally that chlorine was used and that the regime was responsible. Syria continues to deny this.

There are worrying stories of Syrian soldiers using Sarin in hand grenades to kill people who are sheltering in tunnels and bunkers. This low-level use of chemical weapons is probably something that NATO – or the US – had never envisaged. Now, we need to find a way to combat it.

AMESBURY, ENGLAND - JULY 04: Police on the scene outside Amesbury Baptist Centre as Wiltshire Police declare a major incident after a man and woman were exposed to an unknown substance on July 4, 2018 in Amesbury, England. The pair, who are in their 40s, are in a critical condition after being found unconscious at an address in Muggleton Road Amesbury. The town is around 10 miles from Salisbury where former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned in a suspected nerve agent attack. (Photo by Jack Taylor/Getty Images)
UK police confirm nerve agent used in poisoning
01:38 - Source: CNN

We know that the deadly nerve agent Novichok was used in the attack on Salisbury. And we know that the Russian suspects were Russian military intelligence officers and they bought the Novichok from Russia with two days before the attack. Russia has continued to deny any involvement.

Novichok was developed in the 1970s and ’80s at the central Russian military establishment at Shikhany.

It is thought to be 10 times more toxic than VX – the nerve agent used in the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s brother Kim Jong-nam – and is very persistent.

Some contaminated buildings in Salisbury may need to be taken down brick by brick and buried deep elsewhere to get rid of the danger. Probably less than half an egg cup of agent transfixed the world for months and greatly increased the tensions between the West and Russia. And it won’t have gone unnoticed by terrorists and lone wolves.

Had the recent pipe bombs sent to opponents of President Trump contained some form of chemical agent, large sections of Manhattan could still be in lockdown.

Another mega city, Sydney, Australia, very nearly saw a chemical attack last year when UK and Australian Security Services interdicted jihadists trying to use hydrogen sulphide as a weapon on crowds and jet aircraft.

Al Qaeda’s former chemical weapons expert – and since MI6 agent Aimen Dean – has just released his brilliant autobiography “Nine Lives.” He told me recently that the Sydney device was derived from work he did in the 1990s in Afghanistan.

Most NATO countries have paid little more than lip service to the chemical threat since the end of the Cold War, because they believed it had disappeared. This has no doubt changed since the Salisbury attack.

The attack in the UK confirmed suspicions that Russia had only destroyed its declared chemical weapon stockpile by 2017, but not its undeclared stockpile of Novichok.

It is not likely that Russia has thousands of tons of the stuff. But the fact it has this deadly weapon of mass distruction is of great concern to the US and NATO. Especially so, as Novichoks appear to overmatch some NATO chemical defensive capabilities.

In the new Cold War with Russia, the US must be prepared for the use of chemical weapons.

Everyone has seen their effects in Syria and Iraq. If there is conflict between East and West, we must now assume that chemical weapons will be used.

This, coupled with the very real threat of terrorist use – anywhere, anytime – means the US will need to reinvest in its chemical defense capabilities and be prepared to fight in this “dirty” environment.

The Salisbury attack has been a massive neon advertisement to terror groups for the effectiveness of very small amounts of chemical agents in cities. We must ensure that we are up to this emerging challenge to protect the likes of New York, LA and Orlando.

Like any threat: if we prepare to counter it, we will prevail; if we stick our heads in the sand, we will be bitten.