What would happen if terrorists got their hands on a weapon of mass destruction?
This is one of the most terrifying scenarios that people can imagine.
But it isn’t an idle fear.
It actually happened in 1995.
I’m Jim Lindsay, and this is Lessons Learned.
Our topic today is the sarin gas attack that the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo launched in
the Tokyo subway system on March 20, 1995.
Aum Shinrikyo, which translates as “Supreme Truth,” was a religious cult started in
1984 by Shoko Asahara.
He had lost most of his sight as a child, and as a young adult he studied various strains
of Taoism, Buddhism, and Hinduism.
These studies eventually convinced him of two things: that he was the first "enlightened
one" to appear on Earth since Buddha, and that the end of the world was near.
Asahara targeted his pitch at disillusioned young people.
He was a good recruiter.
By 1995, Aum Shinrikyo had as many as 40,000 followers.
Just as important, Aum Shinrikyo grew rich.
By the early 1990s, it had more than $300 million in assets.
How did the cult get so wealthy?
Partly by running businesses, and partly by requiring members to sign their wealth over
to the cult.
Aum Shinrikyo’s deep pockets enabled it to secretly master the difficult task of making
sarin.
First created in the 1930s by Nazi scientists looking for better pesticides, sarin is a
deadly nerve agent.
It kills by disrupting the ability of nerves to communicate with the rest of the body.
Sarin is so toxic that inhaling a single drop can be lethal.
During the rush hour on the morning of March 20, 1995, five Aum Shinrikyo agents put a
liquid form of sarin into packages made to look like lunch boxes and bottled drinks.
Perhaps they were driven by the belief that the Apocalypse was beginning.
Or perhaps they wanted to punish Japan because police were about to raid Aum Shinrikyo’s
offices.
Whatever their motives, the Aum Shinrikyo agents boarded three subway lines, punctured
their packages with umbrellas, and walked away.
The liquid sarin leaked out and turned into gas.
The results were horrific.
Within minutes, commuters lay on the ground gasping for air.
Blood poured from their noses and mouths.
Said one survivor of the attacks: “hell describes it perfectly.”
Twelve people died that day.
Four to six thousand more were injured.
The death toll would have been many times higher had Aum Shinrikyo succeeded in creating
a more effective way to disperse the deadly sarin gas.
Japanese officials discovered after the attack that Aum Shinrikyo had been experimenting
for years with chemical and biological weapons.
Indeed, the cult had carried out at least nine biological attacks.
They all had failed because the cult hadn’t found an effective way to spread the biological
agents.
And Aum Shinrikyo had used sarin gas at least once before, in a previously unexplained incident
that killed seven people in a Tokyo neighborhood.
Asahara and his accomplices were charged with murder.
In 2004, they were sentenced to death by hanging.
Asahara exhausted his legal appeals in 2006.
He now awaits execution.
What is the lesson of Aum Shinrikyo’s sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system?
Just this: technology makes it possible for groups and individuals to carry out the kinds
of attacks that once only governments could undertake.
If anything, advances in technology are making it easier for terrorists to contemplate using
weapons of mass destruction.
The internet makes it far easier to find and share information.
Cheaper, more powerful computers and better scientific instruments make it possible for
people with basic skills to accomplish things that once required sophisticated laboratories
and teams of highly-trained, highly-skilled scientists.
These concerns lie at the heart of the current dispute over news that scientists have discovered
a way to transform the H5N1 bird flu virus into a form that could cause a deadly human
pandemic.
Many scientists worry that this work could eventually be duplicated by less skilled individuals
intent on doing harm.
Such debates are only going to grow more and more heated in the years to come as technological
advances make it possible to do more and more with less and less training.
So here is a question to consider: what steps should society take to protect itself as technological
developments make it easier for terrorists, messianic figures, or just embittered individuals
to inflict great harm?
I encourage you to weigh in with your answers on my blog, The Water’s Edge.
You can find it a CFR.org.
I’m Jim Lindsay.
Thank you for watching this installment of Lessons Learned.