The genie is also loose in the Middle East. According to intelligence sources, notebooks and computer files recently seized from Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Islamic militia, contain information on how to produce chemical agents. Hezbollah has also taken delivery of protective gear, including gas masks and bodysuits, and obtained Katyusha rockets able to deliver chemical warheads to Israel from their base in Lebanon. Hezbollah's interests are shared by at least one other Islamic terrorist, Ramzi Yusef, a trained engineer and reputed mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Yusef's organization researched making sarin and reportedly planned to assassinate President Clinton in the Philippines with phosgene gas.
Some analysts believe there have been other, unnoticed, attacks in the United States.
Most cases are known because they came to the attention of law enforcement through informants, not because of medical authorities. Health officials, for example, were mystified by a mass outbreak of salmonella poisoning in Oregon in 1984. Exotic poisons are attracting not only terrorists but also murderers and extortionists. Several recent trials have featured ricin as a murder weapon. Product tamperers, too, are increasingly turning to biological agents.