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GASWARFARE
(Continued from page 21)
ghanistan has brought out many
news reports of possible use of
chemical weapons. (As of this
writing, Western intelligence,
though taking these reports seri–
ously, has not been fully a ble to
confirm them.)
Specifically, certain Afghan
refugees, including a defector
from the Soviet-backed regular
Afghan army, have told of sev–
eral instances of poison gas a t–
t acks . The reports describe
chemical bombs that burs t in
midair, creating a va por that
ca uses blindness, pa ra lysis and
death.
Other reports have esta blished
that shortly a fter the Soviet inter–
vention in Afghanistan , a unique
Soviet vehicle, the TMS-65,
made its unmistakable appear–
a nce. The TMS is a truck that
has a turntable on it. On the
turnta ble is a turboject a ircraft
engine. Behind the turntable is a
ta nk o f chemica ls, which a re
injected into the jet engine. The
TMS-6 5 is basica ll y a huge
washi ng machine-its purpose is
to spray c hemical decon ta mi–
nants on tanks and trucks that
have been exposed to c hemica l
warfa re.
Responding to the Wes tern
reports, Soviet Lt. Gen . Nikolai
Chervov said that such units were
pa rt of every divi sion in the
Soviet a rmy. " l f such a division
moves to a new place, it takes
a long the chemical defense unit,
which is as much a component of
the formatjon as a kitchen or
mobile repai r shop."
Western analysts believe that
the Soviet forc.es in Afgha nistan
would have every military reason
to use chemical weapons. Chemi–
cal weapons, they point out, a re
very effective against guerrillas.
Par ticularl y in Afghani s t a n,
where guerrillas can hide out in
craggy mountains, poison gas is
a n ideal weapon. Far easier to lay
down a cloud of sornan gas tha n
to try to kili guerrillas with
44
assaul t rifles in hard-to-discover
ravines.
The Yellow Rain
But poison gas wa rfa re may not
be confined to Afghanistan.
During the Vietnam War, the
Meo Hill tribesmen of Laos sided
with the Americans. After Laos
fell to the North Vietnamese–
supported Pa thet Lao, the latter
bega n a program to crush all
vestiges of Meo resistance. Meo
villagers now say that North
Vietnamese ai r c r aft have
dropped several different kinds of
poison gas on Meo villages. A
French news agency release in
Poison-gas weapons are
a frightening sign that we
are living in the time
prophesied by the book
of Revelation.
1978 reported that the MiGs
would drop about four bombs
each time they flew over a vil–
lage. The bombs released a
greenish cloud. Villagers would
soon become dizzy a nd get head–
aches. Then they would begin to
vomit blood . They would die
shortly thereafter.
More recently the bombs; say
refugees, have contained a yellow
gas, whiéh the tribesmen call
"yellow rain."
lt
would probably
be World War
f1
type mustard
gas. One Laot ia n refugee said
that when his vi llage, Prybia, was
hit with it, the people suffered
"heavy bleeding from the nose,
they could not stop their bodies
from shaking and died in severa )
hours."
Leo C herne, who leads the cit–
izens committee on lndochinese
Refugees, has conducted ma ny
interviews with Laot ian survivors
now in Tha iland. "Not one of the
refugees interviewed failed to
know a t first band of the yellow
a nd green powders and liquids
which had been dropped," he
says.
What U.S . l ntelligence Believes
about Soviet Capabilities
Milita ry planners once thought
that poison gas would disperse
too ra pidly in certain situations to
be a good weapon. After World
War 11 , poison gas received litt le
military interest in the West.
1t
was not until l 973-when the
Israelis captured sorne Russian–
made chemica l warfare equip–
ment- that Western military
analysts carne to believe that the
Soviet Union possessed a formid–
able chemical warfare a bility .
The Soviets evidently have solved
the key problem of dispersal.
They have produced a thicker
kind o f nerve gas. The ..im–
proved" nerve gas can be more
readi ly controlled. Sorne Ameri–
can a nalys ts even believe that
this kind of thick nerve gas can
kili more people over a given area
tha n nuclea r weapons!
In this light, American intelli–
gence sources have told
The
Plain Truth
the following:
• The Soviet-led Warsaw Pact
has more than 100,000 troops
specifically trained in chemical
(and biological) warfare.
• In training runs, Soviet bom–
ber aircraft regularly drop nerve–
gas canisters on their targets.
• In practice exercises, Soviet
divisions a re marched through
fields of live nitrogen mustard
gas.
• There a re more than 100
ra nges in Eastern Europe in which
chemical a nd biological warfare
tests are made, backed up by
another 350 in the Soviet Union
proper. On such ra nges, Soviet and
East European t roops are trained
The
PLAIN TRUTH