I came across these articles and spontaneously got distasteful images in my mind about bearded men with turbans changing from goats to each other. Such behaviour which is (I think) not specifically allowed in sunnah, quran or hadith, would be induced by a chemical sprayed over the terrorists in the desert, like a pesticide over a pest. But then differently.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2005021098,00.html
http://www.geenstijl.nl/mt/archieven/images/scientist.html

Anyway, even though the title of the new scientist article mentions rejected plans and the general air of the whole issue reeks like the uneducated ideas of drunk military scientists boasting about something else than the size of their dorks, it's still interesting to me. There would be huge problems involved, and like all war chemistry, the dispersion and body contact of such chemicals would be impossibly difficult to achieve. Simply tossing napalm on the affected areas would do the job too and be logistically easier to achieve. On the other hand, if there's even a scrap of a success, it would be interesting to basement scientists such as myself. I doubt there will be successes, but if somebody has some more information...

The other ideas formulated here, inducing halitosis and porphyria (which I think is what they mean with the sunlight sensitivity) are more down to earth. Even though especially the light sensitivity has the same body contact problems as all the rest of the war chems.

Temporary halitosis can be induced by a number of chemicals, DMSO among them. And DMSO can transport chemicals through the skin, now imagine a DMSO like molecule that dissolves well in DMSO. It would be difficult to make it last long, I am afraid.

Porphyrins are a hot topic in cancer cure research because some of this class of molecules are unstable in light and cause all manner of nasty radicals to appear as a result of illumination. If this painful disintegration can happen precisely in the cancer tissue, it's an effective way to end it. And it is applied as such. If the molecules are not going to a specific tissue, but all over the skin, imagine the results. The porphyria disease which is absolutely real, is caused so. If porphyrins or other light-unstable chemicals can be reliably transported into the skin as they do in the cancer therapy, exposure to the sun is as painful to the victim as it is to count dracula himself. In fact, one of the problems of this particular treatment is the extreme pain even under morphine. It has to be injected into the tissue though, so the only use in military chemistry I can think of is interrogation of jihadis in Guantanamo.