"Hallucinogenic chemical weapons" in Iraq

I don't know if this story is true but it wouldn't surprise me; with the banning of alcohol in the Arab world, there's a big drug culture there that compensates. And since this is seen as a "holy war", the fighters might be more inclined to grant themselves liberty. As for the origin of the word 'assassin', I'd actually heard that before.

From Defensetech blog:

The story starts over a year ago with a Marine blogger in Iraq. On June 2nd 2004 "The Green Side" (...) describes suicidal attacks by insurgents in Fallujah: “We could not understand why they kept coming but they did.” The reason, it turned out, was drugs: “…these ‘holy warriors’ are taking drugs to get high before attacks. As we pushed into town in April many Marines came across drug paraphernalia (mostly heroin). Recently, we found evidence of them using another drug BZ that makes them high and very aggressive.”

BZ is not your typical substance of abuse. It’s a hallucinogenic chemical weapon. This weird concept originated in the 1950’s when “better living through chemistry” was a slogan to live by and warfare without blood was the goal.

Use of drugs to amp up Islamic attackers isn't exactly news. This from the Wikipedia entry for "assasin":

"The term Assassin originally referred to a heretical Islamic order known as the Hashshashin. According to one derivation, the word means "those who use hashish" (cannabis resin) in Arabic because, according to Crusader histories, that group used to ingest hashish before carrying out military or assassination operations, in order to be fearless."