Terrorist Weapons

Terrorists use a variety of weapons, but the weapons that produce the greatest psychological impact are chemical, biological, radiological dispersal devices, and nuclear. Collectively, these weapon systems are refered to as CBRN. Each of these topics is addressed below (area under construction). Off-site material opens in a new window and is linked to the original source to insure automatic updating of the information.

Overview of CBRN Weapons (local)

Primer on CBRN Weapons

Chemical Agents

CDC Emergency Preparedness and Response: Chemical Agents

Biological Agents

CDC Emergency Preparedness and Response: Bioterrorism Agents

Radiological Dispersal Devices

Dirty Bombs
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Fact Sheet on Dirty Bombs
From the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Dirty Bombs: More likely to create fear than cause cancer
From the American Institute of Physics.
Dirty Bombs: Response to a Threat
From the Federation of American Scientists.
Explosive Dispersal of Radioactive Materials
From the Health Physics Society. An interesting brief analysis which argues that the public fear of RDDs is greatly exaggerated. (PDF file requiring Abobe Reader.)
CDC Radiation Emergencies: Dirty Bombs
From the Center for Disease Control. Argues that the main danger is from the explosive blast, not the radioactivity.

Nuclear Weapons

The Effects of Nuclear War
From the Office of Technical Assessment, U.S. Congress. This copy hosted by the Federation American of Scientists. (PDF files requiring Adobe Acrobat.)