Three suicide bombers driving chlorine-laden trucks struck in the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Anbar province, killing two policemen and forcing about 350 Iraqi civilians and six U.S. troops to seek treatment for exposure to the gas, the military said Saturday.
The attacks came after back-to-back bombings last month released chlorine gas, prompting the U.S. military to warn that insurgents are adopting new tactics in a campaign to spread panic. That was followed by a similar explosion involving a dump truck south of Fallujah in Amiriyah that killed two policemen and left as many as 100 local citizens showing signs of chlorine exposure, with symptoms ranging from minor skin and lung irritations to vomiting, the military said.
Less than 10 miles away, another suicide bomber detonated a dump truck containing a 200-gallon chlorine tank rigged with explosives at 7:13 p.m., also south of Fallujah in the Albu Issa tribal region, the military said. U.S. forces responded to the attack and found about 250 local civilians, including seven children, suffering from symptoms related to chlorine exposure, according to the statement.
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The insurgents are going to be developing better and better chemical weapons. Chlorine gas is just the beginning. Chemical weapons allow terror on a mass scale against whoever the use wants to target.
In this case it is to keep fellow Sunnis in Fallujah scared. This insurgency doesn't rely on public support. It relies on public fear. As long as people are afraid they will never turn on the insurgents.
I said long ago that time is the insurgency's greatest weapon the longer they have the more time they have to develop better bombs and better chemical weapons.