Incident Summary:

01/08/2013: Approximately 250 police officers fell ill after being poisoned by an unidentified substance at a police compound in Marmul district, Balkh province, Afghanistan. No group claimed responsibility for the incident; however, sources suspect that the event is part of a string of poison attacks targeting police officers in Afghanistan.

Overview

GTD ID:
201301080050

When:
2013-01-08

Country:
Afghanistan

Region:
South Asia

Province/administrative
region/u.s. state:
Balkh

City:
Marmul district

What

Attack Information
Type of Attack (more)	Unarmed Assault
Successful Attack? (more)	Yes

Target Information (more)
Target Type: Police
Name of Entity	Afghan Police
Specific Description	Officers
Nationality of Target	Afghanistan

Additional Information
Hostages	No
Property Damage	No

How

Weapon Information
Type	Sub-type
Chemical	Poisoning
Weapon Details
Poison was used in the attack.

Additional Information
Suicide Attack?	No
Part of Multiple Incident?	No
Criterion 1 (more)	Yes
Criterion 2 (more)	Yes
Criterion 3 (more)	Yes
Doubt Terrorism Proper (more)	No
Additional Information	Casualty numbers for this incident conflict across sources.

Who

Perpetrator Group Information
Group Name	Claimed Responsibility
Unknown	No

Perpetrator Statistics
Number of Perpetrators	Unknown
Number of Captured Perpetrators	0

Casualty Information
Total Number of Casualties	0 Fatalities / 250 Injured
Total Number of Fatalities	0
Number of U.S. Fatalities	0
Number of Perpetrator Fatalities	0
Total Number of Injured	250
Number of U.S. Injured	0
Number of Perpetrators Injured	0

Sources

Sources
"(Corr) About 200 police said poisoned in Afghan north," BBC Monitoring South Asia - Political Supplied by BBC Worldwide Monitoring, January 10, 2013."

"At least 200 policemen poisoned in Balkh," Afghan Islamic Press (AIP), January 9, 2013."
"250 Afghan police officers in northern Balkh province," Khaama Press, January 9, 2013."