ISIS launch SCORPION BOMBS to spread panic, in tactic used 2,000 years ago against Romans

     

Militants fighting for the Islamic State in Iraq have unveiled their latest terror tactic - bombs containing hundreds of live scorpions designed to spread fear among their enemies.

Canisters packed with poisonous varieties of scorpion are being blasted into towns and villages, which explode on impact - scattering the scorpions and causing panic among the innocent local population.

Although scorpion bombs sound like something out of a modern horror movie, the tactic is actually thousands of years old and was first used by Iraqis fighting against the Roman Empire.

     

Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, ex-head of chemical and biological weapons for the Army and Nato, told that ISIS had improvised devices to launch the poisonous creatures in 2ft bombs.

He said: 'Scorpions are robust – even if they are launched a couple of miles, when the canister breaks thousands are flung out and start crawling all around.

'Some scorpions are very poisonous but the main thing is creating fear.'

Mr de Bretton-Gordon, who returned from Baghdad last week where he was advising security forces, said that the bombs are not causing casualties but had a profound 'psychological impact'.

The bizarre biological weapon was used as far back as *198 AD, when Iraqis stuffed live scorpions into ceramic pots and hurled them at Roman armies marching on the fortress city of Hatra.

    

 Fortress city of Hatra

The Parthian city was held under siege for 20 days by Emperor Septimius Severus before the Roman military were driven out by the 'live grenades'.

 

Last week, the U.S. confirmed it had launched a further 20 airstrikes against ISIS targets, including raids near Sinjar, Qaim, Ramadi, Mosul and Samarra, as well as inside Kobane.

ISIS militants have been attacking the Iraqi town of Kobane since mid-September, when the terror group assaulted its southern suburbs in an attempt to seize control of the strategic border city.

The terror group quickly encircled the city, raping and murdering its inhabitants, but Kurdish YPG fighters supported by U.S. airstrikes have since pushed ISIS back out of central Kobane.

 

 

*How does one safely stuff several annoyed and agitated giant scorpions into a jar? In antiquity the common technique was to very carefully spit on the business end of the scorpion. But that requires nerves of steel and perfect aim. Resorting to a method unavailable to the ancient desert-dwellers in Iraq, they placed the scorpions in a refrigerator to induce torpor before each photo session. The resulting photograph and X-ray of the replica scorpion bomb of Hatra was a smashing success.