Where are the stockpiles of biological weapons in the world today?
Raymond Zilinskas answers: No one knows; the various U.S. sources, including intelligence, estimate that between 10 and 12 countries have biological weapons programs. The chief suspects are North Korea, Iran, and Syria; others are China, Russia, Pakistan, Egypt, and Israel. Martin Furmanski answers: The Biological Weapons Convention of 1975 outlaws the development and possession of biological weapons. Nearly all nations in the world are signatories (Syria, Israel and Micronesia are the only exceptions I can think of off hand). Nobody admits to holding stockpiles of biological weapons. It is anybody’s guess if any countries are holding contraband stockpiles (remember Iraq?). The recent rapid expansion of U.S. “biodefense” research and the classification of some of this research, and clandestine efforts to build “bootleg” mock biological weapons production plants and munitions in the late 1990s had made some observers concerned about how close the U.S. has gone to the line drawn by the B
