THERE is speculation that US troops guarding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are using a knockout gas similar to the agent used by Russian forces to end a terrorist stand-off in a Moscow theatre in October last year.
An article in London newspaper The Guardian last week quoted a Pakistani teacher named Abdul Razaq, recently released from Guantanamo, as saying that when a few inmates became unruly, guards 鈥渟prayed them to make them unconscious, tied them up and took them to the punishment block鈥�. Guards at the camp are known to carry tear gas, which can cause unconsciousness in large doses. But it also causes panic, and is not usually used to subdue small groups.
The US military has shown interest in developing knockout gases for use in riots and terrorist sieges. Its research proposals have favoured derivatives of the synthetic opioid fentanyl, the agent that may have been used in the theatre.
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The legal status of a knockout gas is unclear. Under the treaty prohibiting chemical weapons, to which the US belongs, its use would be prohibited in war, but not in 鈥渓aw enforcement鈥�. The US insists that prisoners at Guantanamo are not governed by international laws such as the Geneva Convention.