The Sarin Gas Attack on the Tokyo Subway in 1995

«FSI: Nuclear Terrorism: The Threat of Nuclear Terrorism»

| Today, the danger of some sort of nuclear catastrophe is greater than it was during the
Cold War, and most people are blissfully unaware of this danger |
- William J. Perry, 19th US Secretary of Defense

Author Archives: Christina I. Iliou

ATHENS

2018

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 The Sarin Gas Attack on the Tokyo Subway in 1995

COUNTRY:

Japan

REGION:

East Asia

CITY:

Tokyo

On March 20, 1995, members of new religious movement AUM Shinrikyo, were identified
as the perpetrators of the worst attack in modern Japanese history. A large body of literature
details describes the evolution of Aum Shinrikyo as a prompted global concern about terrorist
groups obtaining chemical weapons. More specifically, the shocking attacks on a housing
complex in Matsumoto and on five subway lines in Tokyo: ‘‘ by releasing the Sarin fluid in
different subway cars, on different routes miles away from the center Tokyo station points us
out that the effect of the nerve gas would be concentrated, thereby maximizing casualties
(Global Security.org)’’.

From one perspective Aum Shinrikyo goals based on the "'Doomsday": They really were an
apocalyptic group who wanted to destroy everything according to many specialists. The
cornerstone was their ultimate motivation and the opportunity [by any means] to spread a
message in two dimensions. First to the World with new chemical agents and technology. And
secondly, as we can see from the Global Terrorism Database Criterion 1: (acts must be aimed
at attaining a political, economic, religious, or social goal (political reason through the religious
path: an assault) to the Japanese Government. A message that says: people look out, the end of
time is near and we bring salvation, or something with that mind and thought. However, even
if the attack was successful rather as a strong perception, doesn’t correspondent at all, because
they wanted to kill as many civilians as possible in order to spread the word and then… the
direct victims where the original target and the results showed us by the release of the chemical
nerve agent sarin on several Tokyo subway trains as a coordinated and highly organized attack
with modern technological skills (Country Report Terrorism – U.S., p. 209, 2010).

A complete collection of information according to Global data mining shows that the
Perpetrator group threw Sarin amassed fluid (NATO designated in its list as GB (G-series, 'B')
an arsenal of chemical and biological weapons) against innocent civilians (Britannica.com).
And based on the information we have accumulated so far, we can call this incident as a form
of a disproportioned attack with so-called weapons of mass destruction (WMD) occurred in
modern times. Carried out by a non-institutionalized entity by using minimal human (recruits
experts although with no sufficient expertise) and material resources could cause widespread
disasters.

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 The Sarin Gas Attack on the Tokyo Subway in 1995

Furthermore, we are called to answer if this group poses the greatest threat for engaging in
Nuclear Terrorism: Well on the basis of know-how could be, if they were able to implement
their project by 2000, but not earlier. Fortunately, for all, even the plan as executed according
to their operations had a small percentage of success in the loss of human lives. Although we
must focus on one thing according to data presented to us, as secondary or tertiary sources this
terrorist attack was successful: its external acts as a strategically prepared plan (modified to
strategically release the lethal gas) – with intentional use (strategy: bio/chemical warfare) of
toxic chemicals against unarmed civilians by means of the general method of attack who often
reflects the broad class of tactics used (type: unarmed assault) (Global Terrorism Database,
Tokyo, 1995), that it has succeeded in creating long-term psychological problems to the
victims.

However, in terms of nuclear threat, it doesn't match so with this case study at least not before
2000 as we mentioned above. The Japanese terror cult Aum tried to acquire nuclear weapons
but their attempts were clearly unsuccessful. According RAND, the implications that worked
against Aum’s nuclear acquisition program is divided into two important factors: First, the
technical challenges associated with building a nuclear weapon became apparent to the group’s
leadership, which chose instead to devote its ample financial and other resources to acquiring
chemical weapons, such as the nerve agent sarin. Second, despite the reportedly lax of security
in Russian nuclear facilities and Aum’s high-level contacts in the government, Russian officials
were unwilling to provide the cult with what it wanted (RAND, 2005, p. 9-10). The only
success as Dr. Crenshaw mentioned in her lectures is that they were successful in making a
version of a Chemical weapon which they used successfully against civilians.

The above aforementioned makes chemical warfare the number two world security problem
in the 21st century after the biological war and bioterrorism especially when carried out by a
Non-institutionalized body. Therefore, as it is understood the production of chemical weapons
is not as easy to make by a non-institutionalized organization, but it is so unfortunate that it is
easy to supply terrorists with specific laboratories through their collaborators, motivating
ideological views or economic benefits.

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 The Sarin Gas Attack on the Tokyo Subway in 1995

Bibliography

1. United States Department of State Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism,

Country Reports on Terrorism 2010, Released August, 2011.
2. Encyclopedia Britannica, Tokyo subway attack of 1995 | terrorist attack, Japan |.

Available at:

https://www.britannica.com/event/Tokyo-subway-attack-of-1995

[Accessed 21 October 2017]

3. John Pike, Tokyo Subway Sarin Attack.

Available at:

https://www.globalsecurity.org/security/ops/tokyo.htm

[Accessed 21 October 2017]

4. Incident Summary for GTDID: Japan-Tokyo 1995.

Available at:

http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/search/IncidentSummary.aspx?gtdid=199503200014

[Accessed 22 October 2017]

5. Sara Daly, John Parachini, and William Rosenau, Aum Shinrikyo, Al Qaeda, and the
Kinshasa Reactor: Implications of Three Case Studies for Combatting Nuclear
Terrorism, (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2005).

Available at:

http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/documented_briefings/2005/RAND_DB458.pdf

6. [Accessed 22 October 2017]

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