in 1983." halabja in march 1988, the iraqi kurdish town of halabja was exposed to multiple chemical agents dropped from warplanes; these "may have included mustard gas, the nerve agents sarin, tabun and vx and possibly cyanide." between 3,200 and 5,000 people were killed, and between 7,000 and 10,000 were injured. some reports indicated that three-quarters of them were women and children. the preponderance of the evidence indicates that iraq was responsible for the attack. persian gulf war the u.s. department of defense and central intelligence agency's longstanding official position is that iraqi forces under saddam hussein did not use chemical weapons during the persian gulf war in 1991. in a memorandum in 1994 to veterans of the war, defense secretary william j. perry and general john m. shalikashvili, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, wrote that "there is no evidence, classified or unclassified, that indicates that chemical or biological weapons were used in the persian gulf." however, chemical weapons expert jonathan b. tucker, writing in the nonproliferation review in 1997, determined that although "he absence of severe chemical injuries or fatalities among coalition forces makes it clear that no large-scale iraqi employment of chemical weapons occurred," an array of "circumstantial evidence from a variety of sources suggests that iraq deployed chemical weapons into the kuwait theater of operations (kto)—the area including kuwait and iraq south of the 31st parallel, where the ground war was fought—and engaged in sporadic chemical warfare against coalition forces." in addition to intercepts of iraqi military communications and publicly available reporting: other sources of evidence for sporadic iraqi chemical warfare include u.s. intelligence reports on the presence of iraqi chemical weapons in the kto; military log entries describing the discovery by u.s. units of chemical munitions in iraqi bunkers during and after the ground war; incidents in which troops reported acute symptoms of toxic chemical exposure; and credible detections of chemical-warfare agents by czech, french, and american forces. nerve agents (specifically, tabun, sarin, and cyclosarin) and blister agents (specifically, sulfur-mustard and lewisite) were detected at iraqi sites. the threat itself of gas warfare had a major effect on israel, which was not part of the coalition forces led by the us. israel was attacked with 39 scud missiles, most of which were knocked down in the air above their targets by patriot missiles developed by raytheon together with israel, and supplied by the us. sirens warned of the attacks approximately 10 minutes before their expected arrival, and israelis donned gas masks and entered sealed "safe" rooms, over a period 5 weeks. babies were issued special gas-safe cribs, and religious men were issued gas masks that allowed them to preserve their beards. in 2014, tapes from saddam hussain's archives revealed that saddam had given orders to use gas against israel as a last resort if his military communications with the army were cut off. in 2015 the new york times published an article about the declassified report of operation avarice in 2005 in which over 400 chemical weapons including many rockets and missiles from the iran-iraq war period were recovered and subsequently destroyed by the cia. many other stockpiles, estimated by unscom up to 600 metric tons of chemical weapons, were known to have existed and even admitted by saddam's regime, but claimed by them to have been destroyed. these have never been found but are believed to still exist. iraq war during operation iraqi freedom, american service members who demolished or handled older explosive ordnance may have been exposed to blister agents (mustard agent) or nerve agents (sarin). according to the new york times, "in all, american troops secretly reported finding roughly 5,000 chemical warheads, shells or aviation bombs, according to interviews with dozens of participants, iraqi and american officials, and heavily redacted intelligence documents obtained under the freedom of information act." among these, over 2,400 nerve-agent rockets were found in summer 2006 at camp taji, a former iraqi republican guard compound. "these weapons were not part of an active arsenal"; "they were remnants from an iraqi program in the 1980s during the iran-iraq war". syrian civil war some of the victims of the ghouta, syria attack, august 21, 2013 sarin, mustard agent and chlorine gas have been used during the conflict. numerous casualties led to an international reaction, especially the 2013 ghouta attacks. a un fact-finding mission was requested to investigate alleged chemical weapons attacks. in four cases the un inspectors confirmed use of sarin gas. in august 2016, a confidential report by the united nations and the opcw explicitly blamed the syrian military of bashar al-assad for dropping chemical weapons (chlorine bombs) on the towns of talmenes in april 2014 and sarmin in march 2015 and isis for using sulfur mustard on the town of marea in august 2015. in 2016, jaysh al-islam rebel group had used chlorine gas or other agents against kurdish militia and civilians in the sheikh maqsood neighborhood of aleppo. many countries, including the united states and the european union have accused the syrian government of conducting several chemical attacks. following the 2013 ghouta attacks and international pressure, syria acceded to the chemical weapons convention and the destruction of syria's chemical weapons began. in 2015 the un mission disclosed previously undeclared traces of sarin compounds in a "military research site". after the april 2017 khan shaykhun chemical attack, the united states launched its first attack against syrian government forces. on 14 april 2018, the united states, france and the united kingdom carried out a series of joint military strikes against multiple government sites in syria, including the barzah scientific research centre, after a chemical attack in douma. terrorism and anti-terrorism for many terrorist organizations, chemical weapons might be considered an ideal choice for a mode of attack, if they are available: they are cheap, relatively accessible, and easy to transport. a skilled chemist can readily synthesize most chemical agents if the precursors are available. in july 1974, a group calling themselves the aliens of america successfully firebombed the houses of a judge, two police commissioners, and one of the commissioner's cars, burned down two apartment buildings, and bombed the pan am terminal at los angeles international airport, killing three people and injuring eight. the organization, which turned out to be a single resident alien named muharem kurbegovic, claimed to have developed and possessed a supply of sarin, as well as four unique nerve agents named aa1, aa2, aa3, and aa4s. although no agents were found at the time kurbegovic was arrested in august 1974, he had reportedly acquired "all but one" of the ingredients required to produce a nerve agent. a search of his apartment turned up a variety of materials, including precursors for phosgene and a drum containing 25 pounds of sodium cyanide. u.s. navy seabees don their m40 field protective mask the first successful use of chemical agents by terrorists against a general civilian population was on june 27, 1994, when aum shinrikyo, an apocalyptic group based in japan that believed it necessary to destroy the planet, released sarin gas in matsumoto, japan, killing eight and harming 200. the following year, aum shinrikyo released sarin into the tokyo subway system killing 12 and injuring over 5,000. on december 29, 1999, four days after russian forces began an assault of grozny, chechen terrorists exploded two chlorine tanks in the town. because of the wind conditions, no russian soldiers were injured. following the september 11, 2001 attacks on the u.s. cities of new york city and washington, d.c., the organization al-qaeda responsible for the attacks announced that they were attempting to acquire radiological, biological, and chemical weapons. this threat was lent a great deal of credibility when a large archive of videotapes was obtained by the cable television network cnn in august 2002 showing, among other things, the killing of three dogs by an apparent nerve agent. in an anti-terrorist attack on october 26, 2002, russian special forces used a chemical agent (presumably kolokol-1, an aerosolized fentanyl derivative), as a precursor to an assault on chechen terrorists, which ended the moscow theater hostage crisis. all 42 of the terrorists and 120 out of 850 hostages were killed during the raid. although the use of the chemical agent was justified as a means of selectively targeting terrorists, it killed over 100 hostages. in early 2007, multiple terrorist bombings had been reported in iraq using chlorine gas. these attacks wounded or sickened more than 350 people. reportedly the bombers were affiliated with al-qaeda in iraq, and they have used bombs of various sizes up to chlorine tanker trucks. united nations secretary-general ban ki-moon condemned the attacks as "clearly intended to cause panic and instability in the country." chemical weapons treaties the protocol for the prohibition of the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and the bacteriological methods of warfare, or the geneva protocol, is an international treaty which prohibits the use of chemical and biological weapons in warfare. signed into international law at geneva on june 17, 1925 and entered into force on february 8, 1928, this treaty states that chemical and biological weapons are "justly condemned by the general opinion of the civilised world." chemical weapons convention states parties to the chemical weapons convention in 2015. light colored territories are those states parties that have declared stockpiles of chemical weapons and/or have known production facilities for chemical weapons. the most recent arms control agreement in international law, the convention of the prohibition of the development, production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons and on their destruction, or the chemical weapons convention, outlaws the production, stockpiling, and use of chemical weapons. it is administered by the organisation for the prohibition of chemical weapons (opcw), an intergovernmental organisation based in the hague.