'Nerve gas bomb' explodes in Iraq

From The BBC

An artillery shell containing a small amount of the nerve gas sarin has exploded in Iraq.

Brig Gen Mark Kimmitt said the blast had caused a small release of the substance and two people had been treated for exposure to the agent.

The substance was found in a shell inside a bag discovered by a US convoy a few days ago, he said.

It appears to be the first evidence of nerve gas existing in Iraq since the start of the US-led war last year

The BBC has to qualify everything! Next the weather reporter will say "it appears the the bright light in the sky is the sun".

The 155mm artillery round had been set up as a roadside bomb and it exploded before the US military were able to diffuse it.

So, is this an attack with a WMD?

"The former regime had declared all such rounds destroyed before the 1991 Gulf War," he said.

However, a senior coalition source has told the BBC the round does not signal the discovery of weapons of mass destruction or the escalation of insurgent activity.

He said the round dated back to the Iran-Iraq war and coalition officials were not sure whether the fighters even knew what it contained.


Who is this "senior coalition source"? The BBC does not say "speaking on terms of anonymity". Why not name the source then?

Sarin is a toxic nerve gas 20 times as deadly as cyanide.

A drop the size of a pin-head can kill a person by effectively crippling their nervous system.

[...]

After the Gulf War, United Nations inspectors found large quantities of sarin in production at an Iraqi chemical weapons plant.

Which, as yet, is still unaccounted for.