Aum Shinrikyo Case Study

The attack on the Tokyo subway system in 1995, by a cult, was the first time in recent history, that a domestic terrorism entity had been able to use a weapons of mass destruction (WMD) with any means of accuracy. It was also the first time a modern country had dealt chemical or biological weaponry since World War II (WWII). It is worth mentioning that cult followings were nothing new in the world. But in imperialistic Japan, ideology such as this, had never before been seen. However, the attack in Japan, by Aum Shinrikyo proved the lengths a small, organized group of domestic dissenters can achieve with the proper motivation.

The Aum Shinrikyo was a religious group started in rural Japan by a poor, blind, ambitious farmer named Shoko Asahara. (Jones 2008). He began his adult

He ordered his cohorts to attack the village in which the judges of the case lived, producing over 150 casualties. After this attack, the local police launched another investigation, but again were unable to tie anything to the cult due to most of the evidence being circumstantial. Having never dealt with domestic terrorism, the Japanese police force attributed the sickness to WWII munitions found locally around the village. In the coming years police continued to compile intelligence on the Aum Shinrikyo group. With the police conducting more and more investigations into the cult activity, Asahara began to plan his ultimate attack. During an earlier investigation, the police were able to obtain information about chemicals being stored at the house of one of the less educated members. This proved to be reason for alarm for Asahara. In early 1995, he had gotten word that the police were planning a raid on the Aum Shinrikyo compound. This is when he began to plot his largest attack, the Sarin subway attack of