Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS

by Joby Warrick

It was true, he learned, that the militants harbored a deadly secret: a stockpile of poisons they were testing for possible use in terrorist attacks abroad. Through the CIA’s interrogations, and with additional help from well-placed spies, the nature of Ansar’s poisons fixation became clear. The group had managed to acquire dozens of gallons of deadly chemicals, including cyanide, and a small supply of castor beans for making highly lethal ricin. Each of the ingredients could be purchased easily and legally—potassium cyanide is used in film developing—and there was no sign that Ansar’s militants possessed the equipment or know-how for making real chemical weapons. Still, the experiments seemed serious enough. Inside their makeshift lab, amateur technicians mixed cyanide with skin cream and other cosmetics. Their rumored experiments on stray dogs