Egypt and weapons of mass destruction

According to authors Gordon M. Burck and Charles C. Flowerree, cited by M. Zuhair Diab, Egypt provided Syria with chemical artillery shells in 1973 as a military deterrent against Israel before they both launched the October War. Syria later developed its own chemical weapons program.

Chemical weapons program

Egypt's chemical weapons program is the most developed of its pursuit of developing a weapons of mass destruction program though it is thought this reached its peak in the 1960s. It also used chemical weapons during the North Yemeni Civil War. Phosgene and mustard gas were used against Royalist forces and civilians in Northern Yemen.

Egypt has maintained a policy of not signing the Chemical Weapons Convention until questions regarding Israel's nuclear weapons program are answered.

Use of chemical weapons during the North Yemeni Civil War

The first use of gas took place on June 8, 1963, against Kawma, a village of about 100 inhabitants in North Yemen, killing about seven people and damaging the eyes and lungs of twenty-five others. This incident is considered to have been experimental, and the bombs were described as "home-made, amateurish and relatively ineffective". The Egyptian authorities suggested that the reported incidents were probably caused by napalm, not gas. The Israeli Foreign Minister, Golda Meir, suggested in an interview that Nasser would not hesitate to use gas against Israel as well. There were no reports of gas during 1964, and only a few were reported in 1965. The reports grew more frequent in late 1966. On December 11, 1966, fifteen gas bombs killed two people and injured thirty-five. On January 5, 1967, the biggest gas attack came against the village of Kitaf, causing 270 casualties, including 140 fatalities. The target may have been Prince Hassan bin Yahya, who had installed his headquarters nearby. The Egyptian government denied using poison gas, and alleged that Britain and the US were using the reports as psychological warfare against Egypt. On February 12, 1967, it said it would welcome a UN investigation. On March 1, U Thant said he was "powerless" to deal with the matter.

On May 10, the twin villages of Gahar and Gadafa in Wadi Hirran, where Prince Mohamed bin Mohsin was in command, were gas bombed, killing at least seventy-five. The Red Cross was alerted and on June 2, it issued a statement in Geneva expressing concern. The Institute of Forensic Medicine at the University of Berne made a statement, based on a Red Cross report, that the gas was likely to have been halogenous derivatives - phosgene, mustard gas, lewisite, chloride or cyanogen bromide. The gas attacks stopped for three weeks after the Six-Day War of June, but resumed in July, against all parts of royalist Yemen. Casualty estimates vary, and an assumption, considered conservative, is that the mustard and phosgene-filled aerial bombs caused approximately 1,500 fatalities and 1,500 injuries.