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| Terror Networks & Islam |
| Biological attacks 'next terror step' |
| 2004-11-22 |
| SUICIDE bombings would give way to chemical and biological warfare in the next generation of terror attacks, a terrorist expert told an emergency medicine conference in Adelaide today. "Terrorist groups were using chemical and biological agents in their training and it was just a matter of time before they used them for war," Dr Rohan Gunaratna, the head of the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research at Singapore's Institute for Defence and Strategic Studies, said. "We're seeing a new generation of terrorists being trained in the use of chembio (chemical and biological) weapons. Today we're seeing, increasingly, the standard training of terrorist organisations are becoming chembio ... (and) in the future, these organisations will use these agents. Last month, there were 75 car bombings in Iraq. "Why? Because they were trained in car bombings. In many ways, now we are seeing these groups are being trained to use these (chemical and biological) agents. It's a question of time that a group that has such intentions (for chemical and biological warfare) will develop these capabilities." Dr Gunaratna told the conference that chemical and biological agents, including ricin, and protective suits had been discovered during worldwide raids on terror groups. A Jemaah Islamiah (JI) manual for chemical and biological weapons had also been found. Dr Gunaratna said the manual showed terror groups were intent on using chemical and biological warfare. "If JI members manufacture a device using the formula in that manual (then) certainly they will perish (or) at least they will become very sick ... because they are not taking the proper safeguards to manufacture these agents." Dr Gunaratna said al-Qaeda would pose less of a threat in the future, as other terror organisations took up its cause. "Today al-Qaeda is a very weak group (with) only about 500 members. But the groups it trains, which includes Jemaah Islamiah, the group that did the Bali bombing — these groups are behaving like al-Qaeda and that is the single biggest threat we are facing. Before al-Qaeda came into contact with Jemaah Islamiah ... Jemaah Islamiah never did a suicide attack. But as al-Qaeda is slowly dying, it has imparted its knowledge to about 30 different groups — it has armed, trained and financed and, most importantly, ideologised." |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #19 Bio against people is terribly overrated. Depends on the agent. I lived thru SARS in Singapore and saw how one infected person who took a 30 minute taxi ride nearly brought a modern medical system to its knees. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2004-11-22 7:46:47 PM |
| #18 Someone, maybe Zenster, noted that coordinated, simultaneous small arms attacks on many different large suburban malls could wreak as much havoc as most of the plausible or probably wmd scenarios. |
| Posted by: lex 2004-11-22 7:39:47 PM |
| #17 Any attack is not good obviously but I wonder how much damage a biological attack would really do. I tend to think that a car bomb driven into a crowded mall during Christmas shopping scares me a lot more and seems a lot more likely. |
| Posted by: BillH 2004-11-22 7:31:50 PM |
| #16 As a person of interest, I can say without qualification that biological weapons are WAY overrated |
| Posted by: Stephen Hatfill 2004-11-22 7:30:55 PM |
| #15 I don't know about you, but when I see Hawk-eye award winner Les Nessman reporting prior to Thanksgiving, I get very nervous, a fear that is now almost 34 years old. |
| Posted by: Whipper-In Barbie 2004-11-22 7:07:28 PM |
| #14 Do some research on how effective smallpox was against Indian tribes and South-sea islanders. Nobody gets a smallpox vaccination any more, but there are dozens of strains of weapons-grade smallpox available. It's easy to spread, and some of the more virulent strains are resistant to the most common antibiotics. Of course, the person carrying the stuff into the States would most likely be the first to succumb to it, but even if it didn't kill anybody, a rapidly-spreading infection of that kind could incapacitate several tens of thousands of people. That would be an economic blow, if nothing else. We're dealing with people who will do ANYTHING. It's best not to put on blinders, or think something is impossible. Nothing is truly impossible for people willing enough to commit themselves to anything that will harm us or our economy. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2004-11-22 6:46:33 PM |
| #13 Did I mention that the anthrax was not even dispersed? The Aum failed because they didn't have the goods. The 2001 people had the goods. We're lucky it wasn't an antibiotic resistant strain... how many people would have died? What was proved is a capability. What was proved is that the anthrax is here. |
| Posted by: Rawsnacks 2004-11-22 2:52:33 PM |
| #12 Rawsnacks, those attacks (2) represent the only successful anthrax attacks out of more than a handful of attempts. The Aum in Japan failed more than once, for example. It also proved that bio WMD may not be as deadly as the "experts" state. |
| Posted by: Chuck Simmins 2004-11-22 12:01:30 PM |
| #11 Bio against people is terribly overrated. Hmmmmm.... Let's see. Quarter cup of (non-lethal) anthrax killed 5 people, shut down half a dozen buildings (are they open YET?), cost untold $$$ and disrupted government. Good thing it wasn't a suitcase full of the lethal kind. |
| Posted by: Rawsnacks 2004-11-22 11:02:07 AM |
| #10 Washing your hands well five times a day reduces your chance of getting the flu 80%. Bio is the WMD that would be the most difficult to deliver. Too many points of failure. If you die before reaching your target, you don't get the virgins. And... you must ensure that your bio agent survives the trip from Nowherestan. And... you get the idea. American medicine deals with epidemics all the time. West Nile, flu, HIV, and so on. Heck, unless the disease is uncommon, we might not even know it was a WMD attack. |
| Posted by: Chuck Simmins 2004-11-22 11:01:59 AM |
| #9 Bio against people is terribly overrated. Production isn't the problem, it's dispersal. The only kind of agents that are effective are pulmonary diseases, and then only in situations where people are crowded together and have no public health care system. Ironically (new information), even most pulmonary infections are spread *not* by coughing and sneezing, but by touch--that is, hand contact or touching something an infected person has touched. If you frequently wash your hands, or better yet, use Purell, your chance of even getting the #1 lethal bio threat, influenza, drops radically. (Flu kills between 30-50,000 Americans every year.) Other than that, it is next to impossible to determine if a bio attack has occurred, unless you catch them in the act--so retaliation is pretty futile. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2004-11-22 10:36:12 AM |
| #8 If we were to retaliate with an attack on Mecca, we would be admitting that the enemy is not merely Islamic extremism, but Islam itself. Therefore, why hit just one city? Hit them all. |
| Posted by: BH 2004-11-22 10:10:51 AM |
| #7 Don't want to spoil the fun but Gunaratna is a very questionable 'expert'. He's an expert on the Tamil Tigers but he just jumped on the middle east bandwagon, proclaimed himself an expert but there's probably Rantburgers out there like Fred who know more than Rohan. |
| Posted by: Anon1 2004-11-22 10:03:01 AM |
| #6 I think that's the kind of promise to which one is not bound after the other guy breaks it. Personally, I'd prefer a covert infestation during the nest high pilgrimage season that does not mainifest symptoms until the carier has returned home and spread it there. |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2004-11-22 9:22:05 AM |
| #5 I may be missing something here, but I thought the US had disavowed Bio and Chemical weapons, having stated that an attack using WMD (NBC) will be responded to by using the WMD the US has left - ie Nukes. Having said that, Zensters' ideas do seem to have some mileage in them... |
| Posted by: Tony (UK) 2004-11-22 9:09:34 AM |
| #4 Z, slightly OT but your suggestion for walling off Mecca and Medina might also be a good recipe for the Sunni cities of Iraq. |
| Posted by: V is for Victory 2004-11-22 7:03:56 AM |
| #3 America should put the word out now : Biologicals in New York = Mecca glows for the next 10,000 years. Close, but no cigar, Les. We need to reserve our atomic strikes for retaliation against nuclear terrorism. Any chembio attacks on western cities should result in Medina (and/or Mecca) being contaminated with the identical same pathogen or toxin immediately before the haj. "Ooooh, sorry guys, no pilgrimage this year. I guess your fanatic brethern really spoiled the party for you. Maybe you need to consider doing something about purging them from your ranks." Another similar strike results in both shrines being contaminated right before the haj. Yet another strike and the shrines stay contaminated on a 24-7-365 basis until there are fifteen successive calendar months free from Islamist atrocities. All cleanup costs would be borne by the Islamic church. Let them experience the consequences of inadequately condemning terrorism. Retaliation in kind will best demonstrate to all Islam how fraught with danger their dalliance with terrorism is. One nuclear terrorist attack and Medina is a glowing sheet of glass. I doubt another strike would happen if they realized that Mecca was next. This policy needs to be openly announced and signed on by the non-Muslim world. I still have to wonder if it might be better to simply take both shrines by military action and hold them hostage against all future Islamist terror atrocities. Both shrines would become the ultimate "flypaper" for jihadis and we could establish a splendid kill zone perimeter around each of the locations. Land mines, IR pointed automatic rifles and other anti-personnel ordnance could really thin out the ranks of international terrorism and any other Islamic fanatics who felt compelled to liberate their holy sites. Just a thought. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-11-22 1:54:41 AM |
| #2 Why only Mecca? I think Amman, Damascus, Tehran, Cairo, and Riyadh should be turned into parking lots. After all if Allah had not willed it they wouldn't be possible parking lots. |
| Posted by: Thomas J. Jackson 2004-11-22 1:44:36 AM |
| #1 America should put the word out now : Biologicals in New York = Mecca glows for the next 10,000 years. |
| Posted by: Les Nessman 2004-11-22 12:48:29 AM |