Biological and Chemical Terrorist Threat [Archive]

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Petronas

03-22-2005, 10:36 PM

I am starting this thread to encourage the sharing of thoughts and information about terrorist interest and capabilities in the arena of biological warfare. While the first story I am posting has no known terrorist link, it highlights the potential magnitude of a successful biological terror attack if one were to occur.

Bird flu epidemic could kill as many as 750,000 in Britain: estimate
Tuesday March 22, 09:40 PM

LONDON (AFP) - Hundreds of thousands of people may die and one quarter of the work force could be absent if Britain were hit by a bird flu pandemic, a senior government official said. "It may be somewhere between 20,000 and 750,000 extra deaths and it may be 25 percent of the population off work," the government official, speaking on a non-attributable basis, told a conference in London. "That is the shape of the event we are going to have to deal with," he said. Britain's population is nearly 60 million people, with 28 million working, according to government figures.

Contingency plans already announced by Britain's health department include the stockpiling of the anti-viral drug Tamiflu at a cost of 200 million pounds (380 million dollars, 290 million euros). The country's chief medical officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, has also previously described a national preparedness plan the government is ready to put in place should the deadly H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus develop into a new strain that spreads from human to human. Measures include closing schools and cancelling public gatherings like football matches and pop concerts, as well as issuing travel warnings.

The estimate of 750,000 dead put forward was described later Tuesday by a health department spokeswoman as a "theoretical upper limit" of a catastrophe. She said the government was sticking to its estimate of 50,000 British deaths, a number advanced earlier this month when it published its contingency plan. The higher figure, presented to an international forum at the International Institute for Strategic Studies came days, came days after a leading scientist warned that the government's estimate was "optimistic".

Professor Hugh Pennington, president of the Society for General Microbiology, said he believed up to two million Britons could perish from a mutated form of the H5N1 virus. He has criticised current planning for an outbreak, warning that a strain affecting humans will be "here before we know it". Though the government has ordered 14.6 million vaccine doses for Britain they will take up to two years to arrive, prompting some worries that the population could be at risk in the interim.

Since last January, some 46 people in southeast Asia, most of them in Vietnam, have died after contracting a type of the disease as a result of contact with sick or dead birds. Medical experts have warned that if the virus develops the ability to pass from human to human, the consequences would be devastating.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/050322/323/fet4l.html

Petronas

03-22-2005, 10:46 PM

Angolans die from Ebola-like bug
Tuesday, 22 March, 2005, 18:49 GMT

More than 90 people have died in the past five months in Angola after an outbreak of a haemorrhagic fever in the north, caused by the Marburg virus. The World Health Organization says the disease, which has particularly affected children under five years old, is from the Ebola family. The symptoms, similar to Ebola, include vomiting, bloody discharge and fever. The nature of the outbreak was discovered after blood samples were sent to the US for analysis. The Marburg disease, which was first recognised in 1967, affects humans and primates.

Mr Van Dunem said 101 cases of the illness had been reported in a hospital in the city of Uige. Ninety-three people have died and two have left the hospital without being properly discharged, he told reporters. "We are engaged in an effort with the community to find the two patients who fled the hospital and to detect new cases," he said.

WHO has suggested Angolan figures may include other deaths and said last week that at least 39 people have died. WHO has had to cope with several outbreaks of Ebola in Africa since 2000. The biggest was in Uganda four years ago, when hundreds died. It passes quickly from person to person, through bodily fluids such as mucus, saliva and blood.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4372205.stm

al-Canine

03-25-2005, 10:31 AM

EPA Urges More Bioterror Protections

WASHINGTON -- Cities are not getting all the protections President Bush ordered last year to detect a biological terrorism attack, the Environmental Protection Agency's internal watchdog said Thursday.

The report from EPA Inspector General Nikki L. Tinsley's office said the agency hasn't ensured the reliability, timeliness and efficiency of air sampling that Bush directed be part of a $129 million early warning system.

The Homeland Security Department, which pays for and oversees "BioWatch," relies on the help and expertise of EPA and other agencies to run it.

"The failure of EPA to completely fulfill its responsibilities raises uncertainty about the ability of the BioWatch program to detect a biological attack," Tinsley's report said.

Specifically, the report said EPA sometimes placed sensors too far apart, failed to make sure they were all in secure locations and didn't always factor in topography and seasonal wind pattern changes in some cities.

Bush signed an order last April directing agencies to help protect the country from an attack with biological agents. A classified version had 59 instructions for agencies to improve the nation's defenses, including improving the Biowatch system of sensors that continuously monitor and analyze the air in 31 cities.

In response to the report, Jeffrey Holmstead, EPA's assistant administrator in charge of air quality, wrote that the agency was already trying to improve the program along the lines of the inspector general's recommendations.

Holmstead attached the agency's point-by-point reply, which suggested it was natural for the "first of its kind" BioWatch program to need improvement since the monitors were set up "on an extremely tight schedule because of rising security concerns."

Using up to 50 sensors per city, the network is designed to provide coverage for 80 percent of the population in the cities in which it is used, including Washington, New York, Chicago, Houston, San Francisco, San Diego and Boston. The intent is to detect a biological agent within 36 hours of release and give authorities time to react properly.

The system was created in 2003 because of concern that terrorists might aerosolize a biological agent and spread deadly biological pathogens, including anthrax, smallpox and plague, that could kill thousands of people and also harm animals and plants.

EPA uses aerosol monitors that draw in air and pass it through disposable filters, which are collected once a day throughout the year. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is in charge of the lab analysis of the filters.

The program is among the Bush administration's most aggressive anti-terrorism efforts. It is a companion to the programs "BioSense," which tracks disease outbreaks; "BioShield," which provides vaccines, and the "National Biosurveillance Integration System," which coordinates information from the federal government, states, communities and industry.

EPA also was criticized for not doing more to help cities develop plans for dealing quickly with the consequences of a bioterrorism attack.

That lack of planning was highlighted in October 2003 when two BioWatch sensors in Houston on three consecutive days detected fragments of tularemia, a bacteria common among rabbits, prairie dogs and rodents that sometimes spreads to humans.

It turned out to be naturally occurring, not a terrorist attack, and no one became ill. But the incident marked the first time the network detected such a serious airborne threat. The U.S. military stockpiled tularemia as a bioweapon in the 1960s.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-biological-terrorism,0,5136474.story?coll=sns-ap-nation-headlines

Petronas

03-29-2005, 11:22 AM

Angola (Country threat level - 4): On 25 March 2005, reports indicate that several cases of the Marburg virus have been detected in Luanda, the capital. The virus, which has a similar pathology to the Ebola virus, first broke out in the northern province of Uige where approximately 100 people have died of the disease. Various NGOs, including the World Health Organization (WHO) and Medecins sans Frontiers, are trying to contain the epidemic.

AIR SECURITY International - HOT SPOTS 3/28/2005

Petronas

04-05-2005, 07:51 PM

Angola virus workers 'need masks'
Tuesday, 5 April, 2005, 16:51 GMT 17:51 UK

Health workers in the Angolan capital, Luanda, are complaining of not having enough protective clothing to combat the deadly Marburg virus. They say there is a serious shortfall of goggles, face masks and headgear.

The death toll has now risen to 155 people, from a total of 175 cases, the country's health ministry has said.

The outbreak, which began in October in Uige province, is the most serious ever recorded of the virus - which is spread through contact with bodily fluids. The virus is a fast-spreading haemorrhagic fever related to Ebola and causes headaches, nausea, vomiting and bloody diarrhoea. ...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4413651.stm

Reminds me of Tom Clancy's "Executive Orders", where the Iranian Ayatollahs send a medical team to an Ebola outbreak in Africa to 'harvest' the virus, and then use Hezbollah terrorists to spread it in the United States.

al-Canine

04-07-2005, 10:50 PM

U.S. Focusing on Disease Spread Through Air Travel

By John Crawley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. government health agencies are strengthening ties to airlines and aviation regulators to guard against the spread of infectious diseases or other deadly agents aboard commercial aircraft, federal officials said on Wednesday.

"With the potential of dramatic economic losses caused either by viruses or terrorists with viruses, a proactive posture rather than a reactive posture is an absolute necessity," said Rep. John Mica, a Florida Republican and chairman of the House aviation subcommittee.

"With over 1.6 billion passengers traveling worldwide each year on commercial air carriers, there is a real threat that these sometimes deadly diseases can be transmitted around the world in a matter of hours," Mica told a hearing attended by government health and aviation experts.

The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) virus in 2002 and 2003 killed more than 700 people in two dozen countries. It limited airline service to Asia where it first occurred and frightened off many international travelers.

Of particular concern now is the outbreak of avian influenza or "bird flu" that has killed 50 people, also in Asia, since 2003. Experts fear the virus could mutate into a more contagious form and unleash a global pandemic.

Airlines have come under scrutiny for air quality in passenger cabins and complaints from flight attendants that recirculated air can become stale and unhealthful. But health experts say aircraft generally do a good job of filtering germs and the main concern is that sick travelers will spread disease, especially airborne agents, through direct contact with other travelers or after they reach their destination.

Anne Schuchat, acting director for the U.S. Center for Infectious Diseases, noted a case in 2004 when a traveler died from an acute viral illness contracted in Africa soon after arriving in New Jersey. An investigation identified a number of air and train passengers who may have been at risk for the virus but no one else turned up sick.

Schuchat credited cooperation among federal and state agencies, hospital and medical labs for a successful investigation.

But she told lawmakers that government health agencies are working harder to try to detect problems overseas before someone boards a flight to the United States.

"The best strategy for preventing disease introduction into the United States is through disease surveillance, early detection, and rapid response," Schuchat said.

U.S. airlines are working closely with the Centers for Disease Control to expedite information electronically about passengers and crew who may have been exposed to a contagious disease or who are sick.

To address the threat of a potential biological attack on the aviation system, the Homeland Security Department is concentrating on airports.

Among other strategies to mitigate exposure and spread of a biological agent, authorities are focusing on airport terminal airflow patterns and evacuation strategies. Also, the government is testing early warning technology that can detect aerosol and other deadly agents.

The Homeland Security Department is also in the early phase of studying biological detection systems to protect airliners.

© Reuters 2005

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=8107771

Petronas

04-11-2005, 03:43 PM

Fear, Ignorance Fuel Marburg Outbreak in Angola
Apr. 11, 2005

Fear and ignorance are fueling the world's deadliest outbreak of Marburg fever in Angola, where locals are too suspicious of medics in "astronaut" suits to let them take away infected loved ones, aid workers said on Monday. Terrified residents stoned World Health Organization (WHO) workers' vehicles late last week, putting a brief halt to their operations to contain the disease in Uige province, northeast of Angola's capital Luanda.

"We no longer have people coming to the isolation ward -- people are hiding their patients at home because they're scared. That means the virus keeps on spreading in the community," Monica Castellarnau, emergency coordinator for Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in Uige, told Reuters by phone from Uige.

The outbreak has killed 192 of the 213 known cases. There is no cure for the disease which is related to Ebola. "We've become scapegoats. That's how people express their fear, grief and anger at the situation. They see we've got an isolation ward with very restricted access -- they think we're doing funny things," Castellarnau said.

"People have not been given sufficient information to understand the measures that are necessary to stop the virus ... It's crucial people understand the public health risk of keeping sick people at home. Only then can we start to control the spread of the virus," she said.

Marburg, a rare hemorrhagic fever, is spread through contact with bodily fluids including blood and saliva. Symptoms include headaches, internal bleeding, nausea, vomiting and bloody diarrhea. MSF has opened the city's only isolation ward in a cordoned-off section of the general hospital.

But Castellarnau said the hospital should be closed to all non-Marburg cases to avoid it becoming a source of infection. "We have strongly recommended that the hospital be closed temporarily and this is because the risk of infection at the hospital is unacceptably high," she said. Health workers have said basic hygiene rules are still not fully observed in Angolan hospitals.

Emergency measures to deal with the outbreak have stretched to the limit Angola's healthcare facilities which have been left in tatters after decades of civil war. But many locals have not welcomed the strange-looking healthcare workers who have descended on Uige city dressed in full protective clothing. Experts say that is to be expected.

"Wherever there is (an) epidemic we are used to seeing ... hostility, sometimes from the community, because we are interfering in how they are living," said WHO country representative Fatomata Diallo. "Especially in this kind of epidemic where you have to have special clothes, like an astronaut, and come into the family to take a sick person or suspected case. When you come to take away a body, a dead body, with all this kind of clothing, sometimes it is not easy for the community to accept it," she said.

Marburg gets its name from the German town where it was first reported in the 1960s after researchers there contracted it from monkeys imported from Africa. The previous worst recorded outbreak was during a 1998-2000 epidemic in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo when 123 people died.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=659415

Petronas

04-13-2005, 01:47 AM

Labs ordered to destroy flu virus
Wednesday, 13 April, 2005, 01:30 GMT 02:30 UK

Some 4,000 laboratories in 18 countries have been asked to destroy potentially lethal influenza samples that were accidentally included in testing kits. The samples are of a strain that killed up to four million people globally in 1957 but disappeared by 1968.

Klaus Stohr of the World Health Organization (WHO) told the BBC that people born after 1968 did not have antibodies against the virus. "If the virus gets loose, it can easily cause an influenza epidemic," he said. "If this virus were to infect one person, it would spread very rapidly."

Terrorism worries

The College of American Pathologists sent out the kits over the last few months. The company has written to the laboratories affected - of which 61 are outside the US - asking them to destroy the samples.

Given the concerns that the virus could be used in bio-terrorism, letters were sent to the laboratories before the mistake was made public. Dr Stohr said the company had acted in full compliance with US regulations, which are now being revised.

"The risk is considered to be low... but as long as this is out it is possible laboratory technicians can become infected," he said. The WHO is giving its backing to the appeal. It is hoped the laboratories will have destroyed the vials by the end of the week.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4439053.stm

al-Canine

04-27-2005, 09:27 AM

Experts: Smallpox could be sent in mail

By Steve Mitchell
Medical Correspondent

Washington, DC, Apr. 26 (UPI) -- The anthrax letter attacks in 2001 are not the first time an infectious agent has been spread through the mail. A recent article in a scientific journal describes two outbreaks of smallpox in 1901 that were attributed to infected letters, and bioweapon experts said it is possible terrorists could spread the deadly disease in this manner today.

Charles Ambrose, the author's article and a microbiologist at the University of Kentucky School of Medicine in Lexington, noted that one of the outbreaks was attributed to infected letters sent from the United States to England -- a trans-Atlantic trip that at the time had to be made by boat. This suggests the virus may be able to survive extended periods in transit and raises the possibility of terrorists sending an infected letter into the United States from abroad.

Ambrose's article appears in the May issue of the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.

Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta said it was unlikely smallpox could be transmitted through infected letters, but other bioweapon experts thought it could be done -- if samples of the deadly virus could be obtained in the first place.

"It would be really, really, really difficult" to infect people by sending the smallpox virus through the mail, CDC spokesman Von Roebuck told United Press International.

Bill Kournikakis, of Canada's Chemical Biological Defense Section in Medicine Hat, Alberta, disagreed with that assessment.

"If smallpox were available, then it would be possible to transmit it through the mail," he told UPI.

Kournikakis headed a study that showed anthrax could be transmitted through the mail several months prior to the 2001 attacks.

"Smallpox was well known for its virulence, contagiousness and stability (and) was able to survive for almost a year at room temperature in exudates or crusts from smallpox patients," he said. "It would most likely survive the postal system as well."

Smallpox kills about a third of those infected by the virus. Symptoms include fever, aches and the characteristic pox or raised bumps all over the body that form scabs and can leave disfiguring scars.

William C. Patrick, former chief of the product development for the U.S. Army's biological warfare laboratories at Fort Detrick, Md., told UPI he thought it was possible smallpox could be distributed via mailed items.

"Smallpox could be sent through the mail and cause problems," said Patrick, who has served as a consultant to the FBI and the CIA.

Patrick noted although smallpox is not as stable as anthrax, "it's more infectious." Only about three to five individual virus particles are needed to cause a smallpox infection, compared to 8,000-10,000 spores of anthrax.

The bioterror experts consulted for this article said they consider the real barrier to an attack is obtaining the virus, not the mail system. The only known stocks of smallpox in the world reside at CDC headquarters in Atlanta and a lab in Russia. However, some bioweapons experts think North Korea and Iran also possess smallpox and there are concerns Russia may have leaked samples of the deadly pathogen to various countries.

Ambrose noted in his article there may be a second, unconventional source of smallpox in Russia in the Sakha Republic region in northeast Siberia -- one of the coldest inhabited regions on Earth. In 1991, bioweapons experts went searching for smallpox victims who had become frozen and mummified under the ice in the 19th Century.

The concern was terrorists could recover corpses, thaw them and gain access to smallpox, but searchers found no trace of the virus.

The United States could be very susceptible to a smallpox attack. Much of the U.S. population has not been vaccinated against smallpox -- routine vaccinations stopped in 1972 -- and it is unclear if those vaccinated prior to that still retain immunity from the deadly disease. President George W. Bush's plan to vaccinate healthcare workers and first responders against smallpox appears to have all but halted. Only a fraction of the anticipated 500,000 people targeted to be vaccinated received the medication.

Ambrose's article also cited an outbreak in Saginaw, Mich., involving 34 people and detailed in a 1901 issue of the New York Medical Journal. That outbreak appears to have originated in a Saginaw woman who developed smallpox after receiving a letter from her boyfriend, a soldier in Alaska who had written the letter while infected with the disease himself.

The other smallpox outbreak occurred at the headquarters of the Mormon church in Nottingham, England, Ambrose wrote. A report in the April 1901 issue of the British Medical Journal attributes that incident to letters from Salt Lake City, where hundreds of smallpox cases had been reported in recent months.

Dr. D.A. Henderson, professor of medicine at the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, said under normal circumstances there probably was very little, if any, risk of an infected person transmitting smallpox through the mail.

He said it was highly possible the cases described in the medical journal articles had not been properly investigated and there could have been other ways people became infected that did not involve contaminated letters. When he was involved in efforts to eradicate smallpox globally, he said, no instances were ever reported of infections that could be traced back to infected mail items.

Henderson did say he thought it was possible terrorists could transmit smallpox through the mail by aerosolizing the virus, similar to what was done in the anthrax attacks, which infected 18 people and killed five.

"They could do that, oh yeah, no question," Henderson told UPI.

He said it was less likely to happen with smallpox than with anthrax, however, due to difficulties of obtaining the virus in the first place, the technical knowledge required to work with it, and the dangers of self-infection.

Henderson noted, however, officials involved in the Russian Bioweapons program have admitted in recent years they produced very fine, tiny-particle smallpox and conducted outdoors experiments with it in 1971. He said it is not known whether the efforts infected anyone, but it demonstrates the feasibility of aerosolizing the deadly virus.

Henderson said if smallpox was stabilized properly, it probably could survive a trip through the mail system, "but it wouldn't survive as well as anthrax."

Bob Anderson, a spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service, said in terms of precautionary measures to prevent biological weapons from being spread through the mail system, the only monitoring systems in place test for anthrax.

"The system is expandable -- meaning the equipment is capable of being configured to test for the presence of other biohazards in the mail -- but there are no plans to do so at this time," Anderson told UPI.

The Postal Service also irradiates some federal mail to kill potential bioweapons, but this process is used only on government mail headed for federal agencies in the Washington area, he said.

Henderson said he did not know if irradiation would kill the smallpox virus.

--

Steve Mitchell is UPI's Medical Correspondent. E-mail: sciencemail@upi.com

http://www.washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20050425-060046-6011r.htm

Petronas

06-08-2005, 11:52 PM

Al Qaeda’s bioterror threat seen down, but still real
Thursday, June 09, 2005

WASHINGTON: The threat of biochemical attacks by Al Qaeda has declined, but the availability of agents and the group’s professed interest in using them make the danger very real, a top German counterterrorism official said on Tuesday. “Why are we focusing on biological terrorism? We do so because it fits very well into the strategy, into the thinking of modern terrorists,” Georg Witschel, counterterrorism coordinator at Germany’s Foreign Ministry, told a biosecurity conference in Washington.

“Looking at Al Qaeda, since they have lost their territorial base, and since state sponsoring is in general declining, the probability of such an attack might be slightly lower than it was a few years ago, but the risk is still pretty high,” he said at the event, hosted by the European Institute public policy forum. Witschel said while the incidence of nonconventional attacks had been rare, Al Qaeda files and laboratories discovered after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks proved the militant network had sought to use chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

Rep. John Linder, a Georgia Republican on the House of Representatives’ Homeland Security Committee, expressed concern too much effort was being spent on “fighting yesterday’s war,” for example by beefing up air travel security, at the expense of other threats such as possible biochemical attacks.

John Dinger, a deputy counterterrorism coordinator at the State Department, called the dangers of a biological attack “one of the most challenging and frightening aspects of terrorism.” He said pathogens were particularly dangerous because they could spread silently and quickly before authorities realized there had been an attack. Dinger said the time lag between the contamination and the emergence of symptoms also meant it would be difficult to identify, let alone catch the perpetrators.

Because of their potency and availability, Witschel said the most probable agents terrorists might use were bacteria such as anthrax or the plague, viruses such as smallpox, or toxins such as ricin. “Among them, anthrax and smallpox have the greatest potential for mass casualties and civil disruption, not least due to their high lethality. So I think these two ... should be in the focus of endeavors to protect our societies against a biological attack,” he said. Witschel said there was “some level of cooperation” in the international community to avert attacks and mitigate the possible fallout but that greater collaboration was needed. That included a fast and efficient worldwide reporting system to allow rapid response to attacks.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_9-6-2005_pg4_5

candypreet

06-09-2005, 12:35 PM

I think thread like this are a good idea

Petronas

06-25-2005, 01:34 PM

Group Estimates Potential Flu Death Toll
June 24, 2005 7:45 PM EDT

WASHINGTON - More than a half-million people could die and more than 2.3 million could be hospitalized if a moderately severe strain of pandemic flu virus hits the United States, a research group said Friday. The report from the Trust for America's Health assumes that 25 percent of a country's population would become infected if a strain of avian flu became highly contagious and humans had no natural immunity against it. The researchers also assumed the severity of the strain would fall about midway between the pandemic of 1918 and the pandemic of 1968.

The research group says the staggering number of potential deaths and hospitalizations would overwhelm the nation's health care system - and displays the need for greater planning and resources. It's a message that some lawmakers quickly embraced. "Unfortunately, the United States is woefully underprepared to respond in the event of a pandemic outbreak," said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn. "We have a responsibility to focus much greater energy on preparing for avian influenza and similar public-health threats, whether natural, accidental or intentional in origin." Asia's latest bird-flu outbreak began late last year and has killed 38 people in Vietnam, 12 in Thailand and four in Cambodia. People killed by the flu so far have contracted it from sick birds. The fear is that the virus will mutate to the point that it can be contracted from humans.

Seasonal flu kills an estimated 36,000 to 40,000 people annually in the United States. More than 200,000 people are hospitalized each year because of influenza, and the costs to the national economy is $10 billion, as a result of lost productivity and direct medical expenses.

The Trust for America's Health called on lawmakers to provide more than the $58 million that they've already approved for purchasing influenza countermeasures for a national stockpile. The organization specifically calls for the purchase of more Tamiflu, which it said may be an effective treatment option while scientist worked on a vaccine. The group estimated that the federal government has ordered 5.3 million courses of Tamiflu for the stockpile, but that it would require about 70 million doses to cover 25 percent of the U.S. population, which is the rate the World Health Organization has recommended.

http://enews.earthlink.net/article/hea?guid=20050624/42bb8540_3421_1334520050624-51153714

al-Canine

07-19-2005, 09:33 AM

Veterinarians worried about agroterrorism

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- Nearly 10,000 veterinarians and other animal-health workers who gathered in the Twin Cities are learning what they could do if terrorists intentionally infect animals with diseases.

"Agroterror would in fact be very easy to do, and we are quite vulnerable," said Dr. Corrie Brown, head of the pathology department at the University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine.

Animal diseases that could be turned to weapons are typically highly contagious and easily obtained in less-developed countries, Brown said Saturday during a joint convention of the American Veterinary Medical Association and the World Veterinary Congress. The congress includes veterinarians from 40 countries.

Brown's presentation included an image of a scrawled list of livestock diseases -- some of which could kill humans -- that turned up in a cave in Afghanistan. The U.S. government recently declassified the list.

"We know that there are numerous operatives that were planning these things," she said.

Veterinarians and security experts worry that terrorists might intentionally infect animals and cause human plagues with diseases that can be spread to people.

They're also worried by a shortage of laboratories equipped to handle dangerous foreign diseases, and a coming shortage of veterinarians, who provide the link between animal health and public health.

Bernard Vallat, director general of the Paris-based World Organization for Animal Health, said he fears the introduction of diseases such as avian influenza, anthrax or rabies by bioterrorists intent on harming both animals and the public.

He said another concern is pathogens that strictly affect livestock, because they can devastate economies.

"The foot-and-mouth disease virus could be a terrible agent for bioterrorism because it could destroy totally the production of milk in a country," Vallat said.

Foot and mouth disease, which also attacks hogs and sheep, could sweep across the United States if not caught within the first 24 hours, said Dr. Bonnie Beaver, president of the American Veterinary Medical Association.

Veterinarians and others attended seminars that began Saturday and will continue through Tuesday on how to spot certain blisters, sores and other signs of exotic diseases.

Vallat also urged veterinarians to help poor countries fight animal diseases because they contribute to poverty, block market access and constitute a threat to countries already free of such disease.

http://webstar.postbulletin.com/agrinews/283795280428209.bsp

Petronas

11-01-2005, 04:11 PM

Al-Qaeda could spread avian flu, report warns
October 25, 2005

TORONTO - A newly disclosed Canadian intelligence study says al-Qaeda might try to spread the deadly avian flu virus as part of its campaign to sow terror in Western nations. The report by the federal government's Integrated Threat Assessment Centre describes the avian flu as a "potential terrorist-induced" pandemic and specifically mentions Osama bin Laden.

"It is significant to note that Osama bin Laden views chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons as legitimate," says the report, titled "Pandemics: Avian Flu." "In addition, Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda representatives have repeatedly named Canada as a target," it says under the heading "Biology and Terrorism." A copy of the study was released to the National Post under the Access to Information Act.

Security officials have long feared that Islamic terrorists bent on disrupting Western economies and killing masses of civilians might resort to biological agents. Terrorists have shown increasing interest in biological and chemical weapons since the Japanese religious sect Aum Shinri Kyo attacked the Tokyo subway system with sarin in 1995. Al-Qaeda experimented with such weapons at its camps in Afghanistan, but there have been few attempts so far to use them, partly because they are difficult to manufacture and disseminate.

But the Canadian report says last winter's outbreak of the H5N1 strain of avian flu in Asia "is of concern due to its high mortality rate in humans" and warns of "worldwide pandemic." Aside from terrorists, the report warns of the possibility that smugglers could unwittingly bring the virus to Canada. It cites the example of a Thai man who tried to smuggle two infected birds into Belgium last October. The crested hawk eagles were concealed in plastic tubes in his carry-on baggage. The veterinarian who handled the birds was hospitalized with symptoms of avian flu but survived.

The spread of avian flu to Canada would have a devastating impact on the economy, the report says. Last year's outbreak in B.C.'s Fraser Valley cost an estimated $496-million. If an avian flu strain more easily transmissible to humans comes to the country, it "would be expected to be much more virulent and contagious than SARS," which killed fewer than 50 people in Canada in 2003.

The Canadian report says that regardless of whether it spreads as a result of terrorism, smuggling or simple transmission, a central issue is the ability of nations to identify, report and deal with an outbreak. While the World Health Organization has a monitoring system in place, it depends on the honest reporting of member nations, and some countries report false information or fail to report at all, it says.

http://www.canada.com/national/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=475269d1-ff50-40ef-8877-6715c8aedb32

Petronas

11-14-2005, 03:54 PM

Al Qaeda's Bio Weapons
WASHINGTON, March 31, 2005

(AP) Al Qaeda had progressed much further toward developing a particular biological weapon before the Sept. 11 attacks than the United States realized, the presidential commission investigating intelligence on weapons of mass destruction found. The intelligence community was surprised by al Qaeda's advances in a virulent strain in the disease, identified by the commission only as "Agent X" to prevent al Qaeda from knowing what the U.S. government has learned. The discovery of al Qaeda's work came only after the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan removed the Taliban from power, the report says.

"Al Qaeda's biological program was further along, particularly with regard to Agent X, than pre-war intelligence indicated," the report says. "The program was extensive, well-organized, and operated for two years before September 11, but intelligence insights into the program were limited." It was not so advanced that al Al Qaeda had a functioning weapon, the report says. U.S. officials have previously said they found signs of al Qaeda's work in anthrax weapons in Afghanistan, but it was not clear if "Agent X" referred to anthrax. Other diseases that may be turned into weapons include smallpox, plague and ebola.

The work on Agent X was done at several sites in Afghanistan, including two with commercial lab equipment. Some intelligence information suggests cultures of the disease had been isolated and basic production was possible, the report says, but notes this is uncertain information.

U.S. assessments of al Qaeda's other efforts to acquire a weapon of mass destruction did not change substantially after U.S. and Afghan forces removed the Taliban from power after the Sept. 11 attacks, the report says. Al Qaeda was studying nuclear weapons and contacted Pakistani scientists to discuss nuclear weapons, it notes. "We found that just prior to the war in Afghanistan in 2001, the Intelligence Community was able to correctly assess al Qaeda's limited ability to use unconventional weapons to inflict mass casualties," the report says. "Yet when the war uncovered new evidence of WMD efforts, analysts were surprised by the intentions and level of research and development underway by al Qaeda. Had this new information not been acquired, and had al Qaeda been allowed to continue weapons development, a future intelligence failure could have been in the offing."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/31/terror/main684449.shtml

This is from earlier this year, but still is of current interest, as it is likely that Al Qaeda is pursuing the same goals elsewhere now.

Petronas

11-14-2005, 04:10 PM

If this is true: Support for Al Qaeda and demonstrated possession and recent use of chemical weapons - now there is a combination I don't like at all...

10/13/2005

Active Support of Terrorists: It is no secret that al-Qaeda affiliated members of the Yemeni military and security forces are aiding terrorists. A Yemeni government official stated that “subversive” (al-Qaeda) elements of Yemen’s secret service have established training camps for Iraqi Baathists who later fight in Iraq. Military analyst James Dunnigan wrote recently, “There are many al Qaeda sympathizers in the Yemeni military and government as well. These sympathizers have been discreetly aiding Iraqi Baath Party officials who have fled Iraq, and now Syria. There has also been some active, but covert, support for the terrorists operating in Iraq.”

Dunnigan’s assessment corresponds with that of former Yemeni ambassador to Syria, Ahmed Abdullah al-Hasani, who recently requested political asylum in London. A former commander of Yemen’s navy, al-Hasani stated at a press conference that “al-Qaida elements are at the top in Yemen, in the army and political security forces.” Yemeni Socialist Party lawmaker Mohammed Salah, said “The government deals with terrorists in a way to keep them under their control, to use them when it needs to,” the AP reported. Of 144 bank accounts in Yemen designated in 2004 by the U.N. as related to the terrorism of al-Qaeda or the Taliban, Yemen has frozen one. It has not restricted the activities or finances of U.S. classified “Major Terrorist” Sheik Zindani, who remains a prominent politician and businessman.

A recent study for the Center for Strategic and International Studies by Anthony Cordesman found that 17% of foreign fighters in Iraq were likely Yemeni. This figure does not account for fighters of other nationalities trained in Yemen. Twenty suicide bombings in Iraq were perpetrated by Yemenis, reported al-Thawry newspaper. Two individuals charged with involvement in the Cole bombings who “escaped” along with eight other suspects were later reported to have carried out suicide bombings in Iraq which resulted in dozens of deaths.

Beyond training and support, there is reportedly an established terrorist transit route through Yemen to Iraq. A Saudi source recently told the London based Saudi paper Asharq Alawsat that generally, “A young man decides he wants to fight in Iraq, illegally enters Yemen, travels to Syria, and is subsequently smuggled across the border into Iraq.” ...

Chemical Weapons: It is questionable whether the Yemeni military’s response to the Houthi rebellion was proportionate, reasonable, and justified. The primarily Shiite region of Sa’ada was decimated by a military force comprised of former Iraqi military men, Afghan Arabs, and Yemeni military personnel, under the leadership of General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, a reputed al-Qaeda sympathizer and President Saleh’s half brother. Persistent news reports and published interviews have charged that General Mohsen used gas as a weapon during the conflicts in Sa’ada.

Highly respected religious scholar Mohamed Almansour wrote a letter to President Saleh in March 2005 which stated, “We condemn all things that happened in the previous months such as excessive use of force by the Government forces and the use of internationally prohibited weapons.” In May, Alquds Alarabia reported that rebel leader Abdelmalik al-Houthi said, “The government attacked us with internationally prohibited weapons like chlorine gas that caused an inability to breathe.” He also referred to “colored gas.” An article in the opposition newspaper al-Shoura in June listed the names of imprisoned children, including Bader Aldeen Abdula Moslih who was described as “12 years old, very ill from nervous system and skin damage as a result of chlorine gas used by the army in the first war last year.” In an internet interview the same month, a Houthi partisan and purported eye witness described “some special missile which turns into many particles, yellow and then red. The cloud goes up slowly. When it explodes it is yellow, when the particles come down they are red.” The cloud caused an inability to breathe, he reported.

Yahya al-Houthi, former Member of Parliament in the ruling party and brother of slain rebel leader Hussain al-Houthi, wrote in an email: “Most of the injured persons have died especially those who were hiding in Suleiman Cave. They were exposed to chemical gas…The area surrounding Suleiman Cave is still closed by the Army to prevent any one from taking samples to be analyzed by chemical weapon experts. The Army also burned all bodies in that area so they don’t leave any evidence for the international community.

They used gas in the area of Alqari Mountain in the village of Neshoor…The result of the attack was the death of all 40 men who were protecting the area. The bodies of the dead still missing tell now. The government forces used the tanks to destroy the graves so no one can find the dead bodies if he or she needs to look for any evidence.” Certainly the Yemeni regime could put these allegations to rest by inviting international inspectors into the region which remains closed off. ...

Jane Novak is an American journalist and political analyst.

http://armiesofliberation.com/archives/2005/10/13/chemical-weapons-drug-smuggling-and-other-crimes-of-the-yemeni-dictator/

Vancouver

11-14-2005, 07:05 PM

[Yemen] has not restricted the activities or finances of U.S. classified “Major Terrorist” Sheik Zindani, who remains a prominent politician and businessman.
عبد المجيد الزنداني
Abdulmajid az-Zindani, a Qaeda recruiter and financer, who heads a bizarre but well-funded cult compound called el-Eman University in Sana'a, Yemen:
جامعة الإيمان
www.eman-univ.edu.ye

Recently Yemen has turned away foreigners who travelled to Yemen for the purpose of attending el-Eman.

Petronas

11-21-2005, 09:01 PM

Bio-terror strike 'is inevitable'
Monday, 21 November 2005, 17:06 GMT

The world must face the inevitability of a bio-terror attack by al-Qaeda, the head of Interpol has warned. Police and health authorities around the world were underprepared for such an attack, Ron Noble told a bio-terror conference in Cape Town, South Africa. An attack could see smallpox, anthrax, botulism or Ebola-style viruses released into Western cities. The Cape Town event is the first of three sessions to train medics and police how to deal with attacks. Further sessions will be held in Chile and Singapore during 2006.

Addressing delegates from 41 African nations, Mr Noble said al-Qaeda's track record of deadly, unexpected terror attacks put the threat into focus. Evidence collected from sympathetic websites also pointed to an avowed intention to stage bio-terror attacks if operatives gained the capability, he added.

"Al-Qaeda has openly claimed the right to kill four million people using biological and chemical weapons," he said. "Al-Qaeda is willing, able and patient enough to plan and prepare to execute terrorists acts that [once] would have been considered unrealistic or fantasy." Interpol says several pathogens and viruses most likely to be used in any bio-terror attack, Mr Noble told delegates.

Tactics could vary - as well as a traditional detonation, attackers could turn themselves into a "suicide bio-weapon", Mr Noble said, travelling around while highly infectious. Postal services could also be used to spread disease as shown by anthrax attacks in the US in 2001. "The potential consequences of such an attack could be so far-reaching that a lack of action in preventing bio-terrorism poses an unacceptable risk to the safety of societies around the world," he said. The Cape Town meeting follows a conference in Lyons, France, in March, in which Interpol urged governments to back a drive against bio-terror.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4457514.stm

Petronas

11-24-2005, 12:57 AM

Pentagon says mail facility had toxin false alarm
Nov 23, 2005

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Equipment that screens mail for the Defense Department detected possible trace amounts of a deadly toxin last weekend but later tests showed it was a false alarm, the Pentagon said on Wednesday. Pentagon spokesman Glenn Flood said tests that came back on Saturday on mail that had arrived a day earlier at the remote mail-delivery facility, located next to the Pentagon, indicated "a testing anomaly of possible trace amounts of botulinum toxin." Flood said follow-up tests "were all negative." "It was a false alarm. Nobody was harmed," Flood said. This marked the second false alarm for a potential germ warfare agent this year involving facilities that handle mail for the Pentagon, the colossal military headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. There was a scare in March over anthrax.

Botulism is a rare illness in which a nerve toxin produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum paralyzes muscles, which can lead to respiratory failure and death. The toxin, considered one of the most toxic substances known, can be used as a biological weapon. In 2001, five people died and at least 17 others became ill when powdery anthrax spores were sent in letters addressed to news organizations and government offices in Washington, Florida and elsewhere, raising fears of bioterrorism. Those cases have not been solved. In March, Defense Department mail-handling facilities — including the same facility involved in this incident and another several miles (km) away — were closed and hundreds of workers evacuated after sensitive detection devices indicated the presence of anthrax spores. Officials said later tests at the postal centers turned up no evidence of anthrax.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1341493

Petronas

12-05-2005, 02:03 AM

Obscure al-Qaida Chemist Worries Experts
Sat Dec 3, 5:25 PM ET

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt - He's a mystery in a red beard, with a strange alias and a degree in chemical engineering. In the hands of this alleged al-Qaida operative, it's a specialty that summons visions of poison gas and mass terror. Al-Qaida is "wedded to the spectacular," notes U.S. counterterrorism analyst Donald Van Duyn, and elusive Egyptian chemist Midhat Mursi was said to be exploring such possibilities when last seen, brewing up deadly compounds and gassing dogs in Afghanistan.

Van Duyn's FBI and other U.S. agencies are interested enough in Mursi to have posted a $5 million reward this year for his capture. Egypt's government reportedly is interested enough to have seized and locked up his two sons in an effort to track down the father. The U.S. reward poster says the alleged bombmaker, also known as Abu Khabab, literally "Father of the Trotting Horse," may be in Pakistan. But "we don't think there's really a good fix on where he is," Van Duyn said in a Washington interview. "Nobody knows," said Mohamed Salah, a Cairo expert on Islamic extremists. "He could be in any country, under another ID. Or he could be on the Afghan-Pakistani border, with Zawahri."

Unlike fellow Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden's deputy, Mursi is largely an unknown figure. "Here in Egypt, his name doesn't represent anything for us," said Diaa Rashwan, who follows Islamic militancy for Cairo's Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. A son of Alexandria's al-Asafirah, a noisy seaside district of rutted streets and crowded housing, Mursi, 52, graduated from Alexandria University in 1975, say the Islamist researchers of London's Islamic Observation Center. It was a period when Muslim militancy flared in this Mediterranean city, as zealots burned liquor stores and other "non-Islamic" targets.

Salah, who writes for the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat, said it isn't known what Mursi was doing in the 1980s, but he was not among scores of defendants in the terrorism conspiracy trials that followed President Anwar Sadat's 1981 assassination, the young men considered the core of Egyptian militancy. The London center says Mursi left Egypt in 1987 for Saudi Arabia, and then Afghanistan, where Egyptian militants joined the war against Soviet occupation.

In 1998, Zawahri's group, Islamic Jihad, merged with bin Laden's al-Qaida, bringing what Rashwan says were at least 100 experienced Egyptian militants into al-Qaida ranks. But the director of the Islamic Observation Center questions whether Mursi was among them. Yasser al-Sirri says the Egyptian chemist did "consult" with bin Laden's group, but "my information is that he is not a member of al-Qaida."

After the U.S. invasion in 2001, computer files uncovered by reporters in Afghanistan showed that by 1999 the man referred to as Abu Khabab, armed with a "startup" budget of $2,000 to $4,000, was working to develop chemical and biological weapons in Afghanistan. His most notorious work was recorded on videotape, eventually obtained by CNN in 2002, showing dogs being killed in gas experiments. Intelligence sources said a voice heard on the tape was Mursi's, the cable network said. Experts believe the gas was hydrogen cyanide, used in gas-chamber executions. But NATO chemical weapons specialist Rene Pita says that compound has long been viewed as an unsatisfactory mass-casualty chemical weapon because of its instability and low density.

Journalists in post-invasion Afghanistan found the "Abu Khabab laboratory," part of al-Qaida's Darunta complex 70 miles east of Kabul, to be a rudimentary site lighted by a single bulb among disorderly boxes of test tubes, syringes and vials. Specialists doubt al-Qaida could produce sufficient amounts of sophisticated chemical weapons, such as nerve agents, without a large-scale, even state-sponsored operation. "Those were very crude labs in Afghanistan," said Washington expert Jonathan Tucker, of the Monterey Institute for International Studies.

Even before discovery of his Afghan operation, Mursi was quietly being hunted as an al-Qaida bombmaker, Salah said. He said the Egyptian was suspected of having helped train suicide bombers who attacked the destroyer USS Cole in Yemen, killing 17 American sailors. Five months after that October 2000 attack, Egyptian authorities arrested Mursi's son Mohamed as he flew into Cairo with a fake Yemeni passport, Cairo's al-Ahram Weekly reported at the time. "That indicates the family was in Yemen," said Salah. "Abu Khabab must have gone to Yemen. Why Yemen? Because of the USS Cole."

Then, early last year, another son, Hamzah, was deported from Pakistan into Egyptian custody, said London's al-Sirri. Mohamed at least is believed still held, Salah said, as authorities apparently seek to extract information or pressure the father. The Egyptian Interior Ministry declined to discuss the continuing hunt for the mysterious Abu Khabab, about whom so little is confirmed that of 14 descriptors on the U.S. "Rewards for Justice" poster — from "Height" to "Status" — 10 are followed by "Unknown."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051203/ap_on_re_mi_ea/al_qaida_s_chemist

candypreet

12-06-2005, 10:46 AM

Biological Weapons and Bio Terrorism: Bio terrorism is real and is here

by Sangeeta Debashis

Of the three regimes of weapons of mass destruction- nuclear, chemical and biological, it is the last one that is most potent, accessible and the weakest regime in the global efforts to prohibit and prevent. With India having a well-developed bio technology infra structure that includes numerous pharmaceutical production facilities, bio-containment laboratories for working with lethal pathogens, it is very necessary for the government to ensure that the biological agents do not fall into wrong hands.

While the Geneva Protocol of 1925 and the Biological and Toxin weapons convention (BTWC) 1972 are in place that prohibit research, development and production of offensive biological weapons, the latter does allow defensive research. The importance and seriousness of bio terrorism has not been understood or felt until the September 11 WTC attacks and occurrence of anthrax cases reported across USA.

In India too, two cases of anthrax incidence have been reported in the states of Karnataka, and earlier in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. More cases are likely to be reported in the coming weeks. The government of India have rightly cautioned the people to be on high alert on the possibility of biological and chemical warfare attacks by terrorists in India following such incidents in USA.

The DRDO Scientists are emphatic that anthrax is endemic to India and it is learnt that the Defence ministry and the Home ministry are getting "rapid response teams " to combat threats of such terrorist attacks.

Biological weapons pose the greatest threat as these are ideal for bio terrorism for the following reasons.

* have a delayed response thus preventing immediate detection
* the easiest to acquire
* less expensive
* not easily detected
* even a small quantity can be fatal affecting masses
* has potential for major public health impact
* might cause public panic and social disruption
* require special action for public health preparedness

Biological Agents are grouped under three categories based on the potency and ease of dispersion. Anthrax comes under the top category for its powerful effect and easy availability. One redeeming feature is that it can be cured with antibiotics if detected in time.

Category A: High-priority agents include organisms that pose a risk to national security because they can be easily disseminated or transmitted person-to-person; cause high mortality, with potential for major public health impact; might cause public panic and social disruption; and require special action for public health preparedness.

Agents include variola major (smallpox); Bacillus anthracis (anthrax); Yersinia pestis (plague); Clostridium botulinum toxin (botulism); Francisella tularensis (tularaemia); filoviruses; Ebola hemorrhagic fever, Marburg hemorrhagic fever, and arenaviruses; Lassa (Lassa fever), Junin (Argentine hemorrhagic fever) and related viruses.

Category B: The second highest priority agents include those that are moderately easy to disseminate; cause moderate morbidity and low mortality; and require specific enhancements of CDC’s diagnostic capacity and enhanced disease surveillance.

Agents are Coxiella burnetti (Q fever); Brucella species (brucellosis); Burkholderia mallei (glanders); alpha viruses, Venezuelan encephalomyelitis, eastern and western equine encephalomyelitis; ricin toxin from Ricinus communis (castor beans); epsilon toxin of Clostridium perfringens; and Staphylococcus enterotoxin B. A subset of List B agents includes pathogens that are food or waterborne. These pathogens include but are not limited to Salmonella species, Shigella dysenteriae, Escherichia coli O157:H7, Vibrio cholerae, and Cryptosporidium parvum.

Category C: The third priority agents include emerging pathogens that could be engineered for mass dissemination in the future because of availability; ease of production and dissemination; and potential for high morbidity and mortality and major health impact.

Category C agents include Nipah virus, hantaviruses, tickborne hemorrhagic fever viruses, tickborne encephalitis viruses, yellow fever and multi drug resistant tuberculosis.

(CDC. Preventing emerging infectious diseases: a strategy for the 21st century. Atlanta, Georgia: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1998)

Bioterrorism: In the past there have been only two known cases of Bio terrorism which have been extensively researched and analysed The incidents involving the Rajneesh cult and Aum Shinrikyo are well known. Aum's chief microbiologist died under mysterious circumstances, perhaps felled by one of his own experiments with biological agents.

History shows that terrorists are prone to copy each other. Since terrorist groups often strike without warning, we really do not know when and where a terrorist organization might strike after taking inspiration from the previous cases and the recent incidents relating to anthrax.

CIA director George Tenet on February 2,1999 is said to have made a statement that Bin Laden, was trying to acquire chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. His operatives are trained to conduct such attacks with toxic chemicals or biological toxins and there are indications he is seeking to obtain chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapons,

More details of involvement of Islamist terrorists, both Afghan and Arab Afghans under the guidance of Osama bin Laden and supervision of Pakistan have been reported in www.ipcs.org/issues/articles/489-ter-kapila.html

The points made in that paper include

* The ISI had established well fortified facilities in Kandahar in Afghanistan for production of chemical, bacteriological and radiological weapon (perhaps) too. This set-up was established in May 1998 with the acquisition of plant and machinery from Yugoslavia. This plant arrived via Pakistan with assistance of ISI.

* The first WMD base at Kandahar commenced training of terrorist operatives for biological and chemical weapons from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Egypt and the Gulf states there after.

* The second WMD base is reported to have been established at Zenica in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Terrorist operative training here was being imparted to first generation European Muslims convertees and second generation emigres from the Muslim world. Sources claim that chemical and biological weapons materials/samples have been obtained or purchased for relatively small amounts of money.

Russian sources indicate that the network members( bin Laden) have allegedly purchased pedals of anthrax from an East Asian country for $3695 and the lethal viral agent botulinum from a laboratory in the Czech Republic for $7500 a sample. Representatives of the Moro National Liberation Front in the Philippines, having close links to Al Qaida are also understood to have obtained anthrax from an Indonesian pharmaceutical company. Plague and Anthrax viruses have also been bought from arms dealers in Kazakhstan. (www.pircenter.org)

Why Anthrax ?: The question that would arise- why Anthrax is being chosen for Bio terrorism when so many other equally potent agents are available? The reasons are -It is dangerous, easily available with its low cost of production. It does not need advanced technology. Knowledge about anthrax relating to source, culturing, transportation and dispersion are widely available. It is easy to produce in large quantities and easy to weaponise. The most important feature is that it is extremely stable and can be stored almost indefinitely as a dry powder and the bacteria can multiply even in its dormant stage.

Anthrax bacteria (Bacillus anthracis) remain in a dormant state as spores and when it come in contact with skin lesion, or inhaled or in intestine, are activated as rod shaped bacteria, which cause cutaneous, pulmonary, intestinal anthrax disease. It mainly affects the hooved animals but a human being can also become its victim.

With the advance in technology ( genetic engineered and drug resistant strains of the biological agents) and the increase interest of the terrorists in biological weapons, there is need to pay greater attention to Bio terrorism and steps taken to prevent attacks of biological agents.

The history of biological warfare and the international protocol on preventing biological warfare are given in Appendix I & II.

Appendix I

The history of biological warfare : The table shows the evidence of the use of BW from historical times

Mediaeval Time
Scythian archers
dipped arrow heads in manure and rotting corpses to increase the deadline of weapons

1346
Crimean peninsula, B lack Sea and Italy.
catapults to hurl the plague-infested bodies

1518
Latin America
smallpox by Spanish

1710
war between Russia and Sweden
Russian troops used the cadavers of plague victims

1767
English general, Sir Jeffery Amherst
blankets infected with smallpox to Indians who are helping the French defend Fort Carillon.

1930s & 1940s
Japan
Fleas infected with plague in China and Manchuria

1942
Gruinard Island, Scotland
British conduct anthrax tests on sheep. Today, the uninhabited island is still believed to be infected with anthrax spores.

Nov. 25, 1969
U.S.
The entire U.S. arsenal is destroyed by 1973, except for seed stocks held for research purposes.

1979
Soviet city of Sverdlovsk
outbreak was caused by an accidental release of anthrax spores from a nearby suspected biological weapons facility

1980-88
Iran-Iraq war
Iraq was forced to halt its biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programmes. The U.N. Special Commission (UNSCOM) begins post-war inspections

1984
Rajneesh cult, USA
Salmonella typhimurium in salad bar poisoning

1993
Aum Shinrikyo cult, Japan
anthrax mist spray from the rooftop in Japan killing many.

Appendix II

Protocols that prohibit the use of chemical and biological weapons:

The Geneva Protocol of 1925 prohibits the use of biological or chemical weapons in warfare, but does not ban the research or production of these agents.

All the countries ratified it except USA and Japan.

Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) 1972: The treaty prohibits the research, development and production of offensive biological weapons. The treaty does allow defensive work in the area of biological weapons. The Soviet Union and the United States both ratify the pact. The BTWC entered into force in 1975: as of July 1999 it has 143 States Parties and 18 Signatory States. United Nations, List of States Parties to the Convention on the Prohibition of the development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction, BWC/AD HOC GROUP/INF. 20, 20 July 1999.

The Fifth Review Conference in this connection is to be held in November/December 2001.

The Convention for Biological Diversity which opened for signature at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and in January 2000 to the agreement of the Cartagena Protocol on Bio-safety which includes provisions for advanced informed agreement prior to transborder movement of such genetically-modified organisms.

The Harvard-Sussex Programme initiative to prohibit chemical and biological weapons under international criminal law as a crime against humanity

A Draft Convention to Prohibit Biological and Chemical Weapons under International Criminal Law, CBW Conventions Bulletin, Issue No. 42, December 1998, pp.1-5.

"Rapid advances and diffusion of biotechnology, nanotechnology, and the materials sciences, moreover, will add to the capabilities of our adversaries to engage in biological warfare or bio-terrorism."

In January 2001, the US Department of Defense publication 6 "Proliferation: Threat and Response" in which the then Secretary of Defense said "At least 25 countries now possess -- or are in the process of acquiring and developing capabilities to inflict mass casualties and destruction: nuclear, biological and chemical weapons or the means to deliver them.

Biological weapons have been reflected in the NATO summits -- the Washington Summit communiquéissued on 24 April 1999 by the NATO. NATO, Washington Summit Communiqué, issued by the Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C. on 24th April 1999. Press Release NAC-S(99)64, 24 April 1999.
http://www.saag.org/papers4/paper342.html

Vancouver

12-06-2005, 04:36 PM

About Midhat Mursi, from http://www.rewardsforjustice.net
[
Midhat Mursi al-Sayid 'Umar AKA Abu Khabab al-Masri, is an explosives expert and poisons trainer working on behalf of al Qaeda.

He operated a terrorist training camp at Derunta, Afghanistan where he provided hundreds of mujahidin with hands on poisons and explosives training. Since 1999, he has proliferated training manuals that contain recipes for crude chemical and biological weapons. Some of these training manuals were recovered by U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

The exact whereabouts of Midhat Mursi al-Sayid 'Umar are unknown at this time, though he may be residing in Pakistan. It is highly probable that he continues to train al Qaeda terrorists and other extremists.
]
http://www.rewardsforjustice.net/images/wantedCaptured/Midhat_Mursi_al-Sayid_Umar.jpg

Vancouver

12-08-2005, 07:53 PM

Again about Midhat Mursi, he was put on the UN banned-entity list
http://www.un.org/Docs/sc/committees/1267/tablelist.htm#alqaedaind #194
in Sept. 2005, along with 6 others, out of a batch of 20 whom Egypt had nominated for the list. The seven proud new members are all Egyptian. Midhat has been wanted in the States since he ran away from the al-Qaeda training camp which he commanded, but the American interest in him, and apparently the Egyptian too, has increased since then.

Petronas

01-18-2006, 12:02 PM

'Only a matter of time before terrorists use weapons of mass destruction'
17/01/2006

Biological weapons pose a far more serious long-term terrorist threat to the West than nuclear weapons, according to Washington's leading counter-terrorism expert. And Henry "Hank" Crumpton, the newly-appointed head of counter-terrorism at the US State Department, believes that it is simply a matter of time before international terrorist groups such as al-Qa'eda acquire weapons of mass destruction and use them in attacks.

In an exclusive interview with The Daily Telegraph, Mr Crumpton, who previously spent 20 years working for the Central Intelligence Agency, warned yesterday that the "war on terror" was likely to last for decades. "This threat has changed the way we will fight wars in the future," he said. We are talking about micro targets such as al-Qa'eda which, when combined with WMD, have a macro impact. I rate the probability of terror groups using WMD [to attack Western targets] as very high. It is simply a question of time. And it is not just the nuclear threat that bothers me. I think, if anything, the biological threat is going to grow. As catastrophic as a nuclear attack would be, it would be self-contained. But if you look at a worst-case scenario for a biological attack, it would be difficult to determine whether or not it was a terrorist attack, and it would be far more difficult to contain."

After the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001, Mr Crumpton, who was then a senior CIA officer, played a leading role in the campaign to overthrow the Taliban and destroy al-Qa'eda's operational infrastructure in Afghanistan, which relied heavily on covert operations. After the war, allied forces found that al-Qa'eda had been working on anthrax programmes that it intended to use on western targets. "They had hired a very experienced biologist to work on this. They were very serious about it and there is no reason to believe they have given up on their interest."

The fear that terrorist groups might be able to acquire WMD from rogue states such as Iran or Syria explains Washington's determination to confront Iran over its nuclear programme. "If we look at the threat posed by Iran, they have links with Hizbollah [the Lebanese Shi'ite Muslim militia], which is a terrorist organisation with global reach, and they are actively pursuing WMD. And the leadership has made a conscious decision to defy international treaties. I am deeply troubled by this."

As for taking action to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, Mr Crumpton insisted that "every option is on the table" - including military action. "I would not rule out anything because of the particularly grave threat that we are facing," he said.

In a distinguished career with the CIA, during which he won four of the agency's highest awards, Mr Crumpton was a key figure in its covert operations against al-Qa'eda pre-September 11. Referred to simply as "Henry" in the 9/11 Commission Report, Mr Crumpton tried to persuade the CIA to do more in Afghanistan to hunt down Osama bin Laden before the attacks, but two key proposals to tackle al-Qa'eda were turned down.

After the September 11 attacks, in which he lost many close friends, he was initially overwhelmed by sorrow. "But that sorrow was soon replaced by anger, anger that al-Qa'eda could do this to innocent people - and the anger lasted for more than a year."

Mr Crumpton stresses the coalition's achievements in disrupting bin Laden's network. In his view, al-Qa'eda's infrastructure has been so badly damaged that it is now struggling to control the groups that would like to support it. "They can't communicate with their supporters unless the odd courier breaks through. They can't get access to money and things like that. We have made life very difficult for them."

But despite the initial success achieved during the Afghan war in 2001, he expressed disappointment with the support Washington had received from its European allies since hostilities ended. "The job was not finished and it is not finished now." Bin Laden, who escaped to Pakistan, was "in all probability" still alive, he said. The regime of President Assad in Syria also seriously threatens western security, he says. "The regime continues to support terror organisations. And we know that the Baathist leadership fled to Damascus taking with them money and terrorist expertise, and we cannot rule out the fact that some of that expertise related to WMD."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/01/17/whank17.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/01/17/ixworld.html

MohammedAli

01-18-2006, 12:49 PM

al-Canine

01-25-2006, 03:50 PM

Chemical weapons site tightens security

WHITE HALL, Arkansas (AP) -- The Army stepped up security at an arsenal where chemical weapons are stored after three people entered a restricted zone, officials said Wednesday.

The security measures were taken as a precaution at the Pine Bluff Arsenal after the intrusion at a forested federal preserve 30 miles south of Little Rock. Officials didn't know what the three people were doing there, spokeswoman Cheryl Avery said.

"We are still assessing the situation," Avery said. She wouldn't say when the people entered the property or if they had left.

The Arkansas Department of Emergency Management was notified of the intrusion but was given no indication of the seriousness of the incident, said spokeswoman Kathy Hedrick. Guards at the arsenal's gates were giving careful inspections to vehicles leaving the facility Wednesday morning.

Other than the enhanced security, operations were continuing as normal, officials said.

The Pine Bluff Arsenal stores 12 percent of the military's chemical weapons, which include nerve gas and mustard gas. It is the nation's second largest stockpile. The materials are being incinerated, and officials have said that will take about five years to complete.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/01/25/arsenal.security.ap/index.html

Petronas

01-25-2006, 06:06 PM

MohammedAli, you are mistaken. I have, with my own eyes, seen the reports on the results of tests on animals with biological and chemical weapons conducted in Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan.

Petronas

01-29-2006, 02:29 PM

Full text posted under "Al Qaeda News". MohammedAli, you might be interested in reading this article.

Al Qaeda's Mad Scientist: The significance of Abu Khabab's death
01/19/2006 1:15:00 AM
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=6602&R=EAD81C077

Vancouver

01-29-2006, 04:03 PM

The American lawyer Ross Getman has done a lot of work studying the enthusiasm of the good doctor Zawahiri, and his friends, for chemical and biological weapons:
http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze43v8m/newtableofconten.html

candypreet

01-30-2006, 09:30 AM

"Terorists racing to devlop nuclear, dirty bombs"
DAVOS, Jan. 27 (AP): It's only a matter of time before terrorists build dirty bomb or gather enough materials to build a nuclear weapon that could kill more than one million people, but the catastrophe is preventable, leaders said on Thursday at the World Economic Forum.

As weapons specialists gathered to discuss the prospects of terrorists building nuclear and dirty bombs, one of the panel's participants - Mohamed El Baradei, Director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, was called to an urgent meeting at this Swiss ski resort to talk about Iran's decision to pursue it nuclear programme despite international protests.

One way to keep materials out of the terrorists' hands is to lock up all the loose nuclear weapons, panel leaders said.

Another is to agree to a non-nuclear state. A third is to prevent countries from pursuing uranium enrichment that can be used to make a bomb, leaders said.

"That means no new national producton of highly enriched uranium from which a bomb could be made and that's the issue over Iran," said Grhaham Allison, former US Secretary of Defence under President Bill Clinton and a specialist in nuclear weapons.

When the Soviet Union dissolved, there were 22,000 nuclear tactical warheads that were allegedly all returned, but the possibility remains that some weren't, Allison said.

A small quantity of enriched uranium - about the size of a football - is all that's needed to kill up to a million people, leaders said.

http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/001200601271144.htm

al-Canine

02-25-2006, 01:59 PM

Deadly ricin found in Texas dorm fell from a roll of quarters obtained from a "non-local" bank

http://www.wincoast.com/forum/showthread.php?t=27569

Petronas

03-27-2006, 11:11 AM

Growing Fears Over Rising Threat of Bioterrorism
27 Mar 06, 10:34

Police forces around the world are beginning to recognize bioterrorism as a serious threat despite skeptics who doubt that preventive measures are needed, the head of Interpol said Monday. Ronald K. Noble, secretary-general of the international police agency, warned of the danger of biological weapons during a workshop in Singapore for police and other officials from across Asia. Experts say a bioterrorist attack could be difficult to immediately detect and germs could be carried unnoticed by infected victims across continents.

"Some people still question whether the threat of bioterrorism is real, they question whether it is truly necessary to prepare for it. I have no doubt that the threat is real," Noble said. "If we have the chance to take measures to protect the citizens of our nations, to help reduce the chances of our countries of becoming a target, then we have a duty to do so," he said. "Police around the world are now also beginning to recognize and respond to this threat."

Lyon, France-based Interpol is hosting the three-day workshop on lab security, forensic work and laws to prevent bioterrorism. Nearly 80 delegates from 26 countries in Asia will also assess how to respond to a simulated bioterrorist attack.

At a separate seminar, a U.S. official said Washington considers naturally occurring or genetically engineered pathogens -- micro-organisms or viruses that cause disease -- one of the greatest global threats because they could kill hundreds of thousands of people. "Terrorists or hostile states intentionally changing the genetic design of a pathogen such that it can defeat our current defenses, this was seen as a major threat," said James Thomas, principal author of the Quadrennial Defense Review, a key U.S. Defense Department policy paper. Thomas said the Defense Department might invest in defenses against genetically engineered pathogens, with the possibility that these solutions could also stem broader health problems such as bird flu.

At the Interpol event, Ho Peng Kee, Singapore's senior minister of state for law and home affairs, urged law enforcement agencies to coordinate efforts to ward off the threat of an attack with biological agents or toxins. "We may not realize that a biological attack has occurred until perhaps days or even weeks later," Ho said. "By that time, the terrorist may already have fled the country or succumbed to the biological agent, and all the valuable investigative leads may have disappeared."

So far, militants in Southeast Asia have used conventional terror weapons. Jemaah Islamiyah, a group linked to al-Qaida, is accused of deadly bombings. The Abu Sayyaf group has carried out bomb attacks and kidnappings in the Philippines. But detained suspects include Yazid Sufaat, a former Malaysian army captain and a U.S.-trained biochemist linked to al-Qaida's attempts to produce chemical and biological arms. A Jemaah Islamiyah manual discovered in the Philippines in 2003 indicates interest in acquiring chemical and biological agents for use in a terrorist attack, terrorism experts say.

Singapore, a close U.S. ally, views its 2003 fight against SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, as preparation for a bioterrorist attack. The city-state carried out temperature tests on citizens as well as measures such as home quarantine. The disease spread from Asia across the world, killing nearly 800 people.(AP)

http://www.naharnet.com/domino/tn/NewsDesk.nsf/getstory?openform&044634FECC319B75C225713E002EFD06

al-Canine

03-27-2006, 11:49 AM

Despite 9/11 Effect, Railyards Are Still Vulnerable

By DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI

NEWARK — Two signs just inside the entrance of the Oak Island rail depot here hint at dangers inside. "Our Employees' Safety Is in Your Hands." one reads. "You Are Accountable for Your Safety," reads another.

Beyond those two placards, however, there are few visible signs that security is a high priority at the railyard, just three miles from downtown Newark and seven miles from Manhattan, where 90-ton tanker cars full of deadly chemical gases are routinely stored and shipped.

Gates to the depot are unlocked and unguarded, allowing unimpeded access to tracks where cars loaded with deadly chlorine, ammonia or oleum gases are stored.

Along the track bed, many switching devices are unlocked, so unauthorized passers-by could redirect, and possibly derail, a train by simply pulling a lever. Security is so lax that a reporter and photographer recently spent 10 minutes driving along a rail bed beside cars holding toxic chemicals without being challenged, or even approached, by railroad employees.

In the years since the 9/11 attacks, public concern about a potential terrorist strike at one of the nation's chemical plants has caused federal and local officials to inch toward tighter safeguards at manufacturing and processing plants. On Tuesday, in a speech before the American Chemistry Council, Michael Chertoff, secretary of homeland security, said he would ask Congress to adopt a series of chemical plant security measures that have largely been endorsed by the industry.

Even if the chemical plants are secure, the public could be left vulnerable by the railways running in and out of many of them. The railways transport more than 1.7 million shipments of hazardous materials every year, including 100,000 tank cars filled with toxic gases like chlorine and anhydrous ammonia.

According to a recent study by the Navy, an accident or terrorist attack involving a single car of chlorine near a densely populated area could kill as many as 100,000 people.

In New Jersey, where so many chemical factories and refineries are crowded near major population centers, including a stretch near Newark Liberty International Airport that has been called "the most dangerous two miles in America," the difficulty of managing that potentially deadly cargo is particularly complex.

Since 9/11, railroads have spent millions to install fences and security cameras and add additional officers around the state, but industry officials concede that their facilities are far too large to be completely sealed. Leaders of railroad workers' unions say it is not uncommon for tanker cars to be left unattended for days, and that security along the rails is frighteningly inadequate. And the sight of graffiti-covered tank cars filled with deadly gases is a reminder of the holes in the security system.

State and local officials say they are limited in what they can do to regulate the thousands of tank cars of deadly gases hauled around New Jersey each year. In other cities and states, proposals to reroute dangerous chemicals away from major population centers, most notably in Washington, D.C., have faced fierce opposition and legal challenges from both the railroads and local communities where the chemicals would be rerouted. The courts have also upheld the railroads' assertion that only the federal government can regulate rail traffic.

The Homeland Security Department has been reluctant to tighten regulations regarding the transportation of deadly chemicals by rail. In his speech last week, Mr. Chertoff made only passing reference to the risks of transporting the deadly cargo, and there is no indication that the department will require the kind of changes in equipment and procedures that security experts say will reduce the risk of a terrorist attack or catastrophic accident.

"Chemical transport is clearly the greatest vulnerability in the country today, and for some reason — and I'm not sure what it is — the federal government has not acted," said Richard A. Falkenrath, President Bush's former deputy homeland security adviser. "There's no legislation necessary, the government already has the authority to require stronger containers, reroute shipments, and allow the kind of tracking that would allow local police agencies to know what they have to contend with in their communities. But to date it hasn't been done."

The risks involved in moving toxic rail cargo are a particular concern in New Jersey. Last fall, it became the first state to enact regulations intended to deter terror attacks on chemical plants by requiring companies to explore the feasibility of switching to safer technologies.

Because many of the railyards in New Jersey are near petroleum storage tanks, natural-gas depots, or propane tanks, the effect of an attack on a rail car is likely to be magnified, said Paul DeMatteis, a security analyst at Global Security Risk Management, a corporate security company.

When Gov. Jon S. Corzine was still in the United States Senate, he helped write federal legislation to tighten safety standards for both chemical plants and the railroads that supply them.

Since being sworn in as governor two months ago, Mr. Corzine has earmarked $20 million to strengthen security around New Jersey's critical highways, rail links and bridges against possible terror attacks, and vowed to strengthen safeguards at railway chemical depots and plants around the state.

The vulnerability of the rail lines has even undercut some of New Jersey officials' progress in making chemical plants safer. Last fall, owners of the Keene Chemical plant in Kearney agreed to reduce their stockpiles of chlorine by keeping no more than one tanker car of chlorine on the premises at a time. That policy means that tanker cars that were once stored in the moderately guarded chemical plant will spend more time waiting on less secure railway sidings.

"It's this shell game," said Rick Engler, director of the New Jersey Work Environment Council, a union group that has lobbied for an assortment of restrictions on toxic chemicals. "But shifting around the problem doesn't solve the problem."

Railroad officials say their self-imposed security measures have provided a web of security far more effective and sophisticated than that in virtually any other industry. Peggy Wilhide, spokeswoman for the Association of American Railroads, said that major rail carriers have spent more than $200 million since 9/11 on security measures, including fences and motion detectors, training, high-tech scanning devices, and tracking to monitor the shipment of some dangerous cargo.

After two accidental derailments in 2004 and 2005 caused toxic chemical releases that killed 12 people and injured hundreds, the railroads have also been considering a requirement that chemical companies replace their aging tankers with a newer, more highly reinforced generation of cars, Ms. Wilhide said.

Ms. Wilhide said that the industry opposed the plan to reroute shipments because it would actually increase the chance of an accident by forcing trains to haul the tankers full of toxic chemicals for longer distances, over older, less well-maintained rails.

Homeland Security Department officials have praised the rail carriers' cooperation, saying the railroads have moved responsibly to bolster the security of their facilities and to give law enforcement officials the information needed to develop a real-time tracking system for the most dangerous toxic rail cars. Homeland Security officials are also working with the railroads and the federal Department of Transportation to devise buffer zone protection plans to provide security near the most perilous rail sites.

But the Homeland Security Department has not embraced calls to reroute trains carrying toxics or require that chemical companies update their fleet of tank cars.

Brian Doyle, a Homeland Security Department spokesman, said it wanted to complete a thorough assessment of the system before imposing any restrictions on the railways. "It's one thing to just throw money at something and say it is fixed," he said. "But you want to do it right." In his speech on Tuesday, Mr. Chertoff said the department supported the one policy that local communities, environmental advocates and the railroads all agree on — that chemical plants and manufacturers should be urged to adopt processes that reduce, or eliminate, the need for toxic chemicals like chlorine and ammonia.

But the department will not require any shift to safer technology, Mr. Chertoff said, and the chemical security bill he is now advocating is likely to prevent states from adopting any such requirement.

In Spotswood, N.J., about 17 miles northeast of Princeton, many residents were startled to learn in the months after 9/11 that their community was home to a plant that had enough chlorine on hand kill as many as 960,000 people if an accident or terrorist attack caused it to be released and carried on the wind. Local officials worked with the company, Schweitzer-Mauduit, which makes cigarette papers, to tighten its security procedures and adopt more sophisticated plans for evacuation, detection and cleanup.

Bill Foust, a spokesman for the company, said switching to new technology that would eliminate the need for chlorine would be too expensive.

Barry H. Zagnit, mayor of Spotswood, said that despite the continuing risks, he could understand why company officials did not feel the investment was warranted.

"You have a mill that's our largest employer, our largest taxpayer," he said. "It's essential to the economy of the borough. "We certainly would never want to see Schweitzer move the plant," he said. "That would have a devastating effect on the borough, where people are already saddled with high property taxes."

A similar political struggle has been simmering in Paulsboro in South Jersey, where the Valero refinery has enough toxic hydrofluoric acid on hand at one time to create an airborne plume 19 miles long that could affect as many as three million people, according to a study by the Work Environmental Council based on federal Environmental Protection Agency data.

The company has spent more than $5 million on bolstering security since 9/11, according to its spokeswoman, and has several systems designed to dissipate toxic gases in the event of a discharge. But Valero officials have resisted demands that they move to a process that would not use hydrofluoric acid, saying that it would be unworkable.

Steven M. Sweeney, the state senator whose district includes the Valero plant and at least three others that use large amounts of toxic gases, said that unless the state and federal governments intercede, little will be done to make communities like his safer.

"In Fieldsboro, there are a few trains a week that roll through town, 125 cars long; at least 80 of them are the kind of toxic chemicals that could cause a catastrophe, just devastate a community," he said. "Anyone who feels safe is living in a dream world."

Copyright 2006The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/27/nyregion/27secure.html?

candypreet

03-27-2006, 10:58 PM

good posts here

candypreet

04-01-2006, 10:35 AM

Pakistan’s first DNA lab set up

By Shahzad Raza

ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao on Friday inaugurated a DNA testing laboratory that would help law enforcement and intelligence agencies in their fight against domestic terrorism and crime.

“The government is committed to making the latest DNA testing technology available to law enforcement agencies,” Sherpao said, while inaugurating the DNA laboratory that has been established by the National Police Bureau (NPB).

He said that the lab was a major step in the ongoing efforts of the interior ministry to better equip police and law enforcement agencies in their fight against crime.

He said that DNA technology was the most remarkable crime-fighting tool of the 21st century and was being used in all developed countries. He said that in recent years, scientific development had increased public awareness about the use of DNA evidence in civil and criminal cases. Most of the lab equipment that would be used for identification and profiling has been donated by the Chinese government. The Institute of Forensic Sciences of China’s Ministry of Public Security has also trained two Pakistani scientists in using the DNA technology. Sherpao said that the lab was another testimonial to the friendship between Pakistan and China. “We are extremely grateful to the government and the people of China and shall be looking forward to continuing cooperation and support in our future endeavours,” he said.

Interior Secretary Syed Kamal Shah said that use of forensic DNA technology to associate individuals with crimes, had brought a revolution in solving crimes. “Forensic DNA now has the ability to prove the guilt or innocence of an individual even when the suspect is unknown to the victim,” Shah said.

Zhang Chunxing, the Chinese ambassador to Pakistan, said that his country valued its relations with Pakistan. He said that Chinese cooperation to Pakistan would continue in future. Muhammad Shoaib Suddle, director general of the NPB, thanked the minister and secretary for their support in establishing the lab.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006%5C04%5C01%5Cstory_1-4-2006_pg11_10

Petronas

04-02-2006, 11:53 AM

A Dry Run for Handling a Disaster in the City Railyards
Published: March 27, 2006

How would New York City respond if a bomb filled with arsenic trichloride, a highly toxic liquid compound, were to explode on a freight train moving through a Queens railyard — just when a commuter train carrying weekend passengers was traveling in the other direction? Emergency workers carry away an actor posing as a victim. The scenario involved a bomb with toxic chemicals exploding next to a commuter train.

Emergency workers would rush in, try to determine what threat was involved and begin decontaminating the dozens of wounded. A temporary morgue would be set up to receive the dead — estimated at 28, including two of the rescuers. That nightmarish situation was the basis for a four-hour simulation yesterday involving 1,500 police officers, firefighters and other emergency workers and tested the city's ability to respond to a chemical emergency, though not necessarily a terrorist attack. The Office of Emergency Management planned the field exercise, named Trifecta because it emphasized three activities: search and rescue, victim identification and handling of the dead.

Despite the grim nature of the exercise — the casualties would have included 74 injured — the commissioner of emergency management, Joseph F. Bruno, said it demonstrated the effectiveness of the Citywide Incident Management System, a protocol that governs how various city agencies are to interact during a major emergency. "I'm happy and I'm actually a little surprised that it worked as well as it did," Mr. Bruno said at an afternoon news conference, after most of the exercise had been completed. A critical element of the response plan gives the Police Department overall command of the city's emergency agencies in most major disasters, at least until the possibility of terrorism has been ruled out. The Fire Department had sought control of several types of situations, including those that involve hazardous materials.

The plan, which took effect under an executive order signed last April by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, was prepared after a lengthy examination of poor coordination and communication among city agencies, particularly the Police and Fire Departments, during the terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001. Yesterday was the first major field test of that agreement. Police commanders set up a "unified command," which provided for top officials from the police, fire, health, environmental protection and other departments to make joint decisions. "It's a matter of respecting their core competencies," Mr. Bruno said.

Although police and fire officials clashed during the formation of the plan, leaders from both sides said yesterday that it was effective. "I think CIMS is clearly the way to go, and I believe it's been accepted by all the agencies," Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said. Frank P. Cruthers, first deputy commissioner at the Fire Department, said the test was "a very realistic exercise" and added, "The level of cooperation was terrific."

The exercise, financed by $700,000 from the federal Department of Homeland Security, began with a mock explosion at 10 a.m. in the railyard at Maspeth, Queens, an industrial neighborhood dominated by factories and warehouses. The New York & Atlantic Railway provided the freight train for the exercise, while the Metropolitan Transportation Authority supplied a Long Island Rail Road passenger train. Several federal and state agencies participated, as did nonprofit groups including the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army.

The Fire Department was the first to respond after the simulated explosion, followed by the Police and Environmental Protection Departments. "When you look at this incident, it seemed at first to move very slowly in the beginning," Mr. Bruno said afterward. "That's just the way it has to. We do not know if there are other explosive devices here. We do not know the nature of the chemical." Once the various officials evaluated the danger, he said, they made "good, crisp decisions."

Mr. Bruno said the exercise proceeded with only a few glitches. At one point, he said, a centralized operations post had to be separated from the command post because "there was too much confusion." Since 9/11, the city has had other drills involving the premise of a terrorist attack, including one at Shea Stadium in March 2004 and another at the Bowling Green subway station, in Lower Manhattan, in May 2004.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/27/nyregion/27test.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Petronas

04-19-2006, 04:37 PM

No indication of foul play here, though one would most likely not know yet for the first case even when a biological atttack happens.

Rare bubonic plague case reported in Los Angeles
Apr 18 6:14 PM US/Eastern

A case of bubonic plague has been reported in the second largest US city of Los Angeles for the first time in 22 years, health officials said. An unidentified woman came down last week with symptoms of the disease, known as the Black Death when it devastatingly swept across Europe in the 14th century. Health officials said they believed the infected woman, who remains hospitalised, was exposed to fleas in the area around her house and stressed that the likelihood of a spread of the rare disease was very unlikely. ...

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/04/18/060418221440.ge1hwj2v.html

al-Canine

07-30-2006, 01:07 PM

The Secretive Fight Against Bioterror

The government is building a highly classified facility to research biological weapons, but its closed-door approach has raised concerns.

By Joby Warrick | Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 30, 2006

On the grounds of a military base an hour's drive from the capital, the Bush administration is building a massive biodefense laboratory unlike any seen since biological weapons were banned 34 years ago.

The heart of the lab is a cluster of sealed chambers built to contain the world's deadliest bacteria and viruses. There, scientists will spend their days simulating the unthinkable: bioterrorism attacks in the form of lethal anthrax spores rendered as wispy powders that can drift for miles on a summer breeze, or common viruses turned into deadly superbugs that ordinary drugs and vaccines cannot stop.

The work at this new lab, at Fort Detrick, Md., could someday save thousands of lives -- or, some fear, create new risks and place the United States in violation of international treaties. In either case, much of what transpires at the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center (NBACC) may never be publicly known, because the Bush administration intends to operate the facility largely in secret.

In an unusual arrangement, the building itself will be classified as highly restricted space, from the reception desk to the lab benches to the cages where animals are kept. Few federal facilities, including nuclear labs, operate with such stealth. It is this opacity that some arms-control experts say has become a defining characteristic of U.S. biodefense policy as carried out by the Department of Homeland Security, NBACC's creator.

Since the department's founding in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, its officials have dramatically expanded the government's ability to conduct realistic tests of the pathogens and tactics that might be used in a bioterrorism attack. Some of the research falls within what many arms-control experts say is a legal gray zone, skirting the edges of an international treaty outlawing the production of even small amounts of biological weapons.

The administration dismisses these concerns, however, insisting that the work of NBACC is purely defensive and thus fully legal. It has rejected calls for oversight by independent observers outside the department's network of government scientists and contractors. And it defends the secrecy as necessary to protect Americans.

"Where the research exposes vulnerability, I've got to protect that, for the public's interest," said Bernard Courtney, NBACC's scientific director. "We don't need to be showing perpetrators the holes in our defense."

Tara O'Toole, founder of the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and an adviser to the Defense Department on bioterrorism, said the secrecy fits a larger pattern and could have consequences. "The philosophy and practice behind NBACC looks like much of the rest of the administration's philosophy and practice: 'Our intent is good, so we can do whatever we want,' " O'Toole said. "This approach will only lead to trouble."

Although they acknowledge the need to shield the results of some sensitive projects from public view, critics of NBACC fear that excessive secrecy could actually increase the risk of bioterrorism. That would happen, they say, if the lab fosters ill-designed experiments conducted without proper scrutiny or if its work fuels suspicions that could lead other countries to pursue secret biological research.

The few public documents that describe NBACC's research mission have done little to quiet those fears. A computer slide show prepared by the center's directors in 2004 offers a to-do list that suggests the lab will be making and testing small amounts of weaponized microbes and, perhaps, genetically engineered viruses and bacteria. It also calls for "red team" exercises that simulate attacks by hostile groups.

NBACC's close ties to the U.S. intelligence community have also caused concern among the agency's critics. The CIA has assigned advisers to the lab, including at least one member of the "Z-Division," an elite group jointly operated with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory that specializes in analyzing and duplicating weapons systems of potential adversaries, officials familiar with the program confirm.

Bioweapons experts say the nature of the research envisioned for NBACC demands an unusually high degree of transparency to reassure Americans and the rest of the world of the U.S. government's intentions.

"If we saw others doing this kind of research, we would view it as an infringement of the bioweapons treaty," said Milton Leitenberg, a senior research scholar and weapons expert at the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy. "You can't go around the world yelling about Iranian and North Korean programs -- about which we know very little -- when we've got all this going on."

Creating the Weapons of Terrorism

Created without public fanfare a few months after the 2001 anthrax attacks, NBACC is intended to be the chief U.S. biological research institution engaged in something called "science-based threat assessment." It seeks to quantitatively answer one of the most difficult questions in biodefense: What's the worst that can happen?

To truly answer that question, there is little choice, current and former NBACC officials say: Researchers have to make real biological weapons.

"De facto, we are going to make biowarfare pathogens at NBACC in order to study them," said Penrose "Parney" Albright, former Homeland Security assistant secretary for science and technology.

Other government agencies, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, study disease threats such as smallpox to discover cures. By contrast, NBACC (pronounced EN-back) attempts to get inside the head of a bioterrorist. It considers the wide array of potential weapons available. It looks for the holes in society's defenses where an attacker might achieve the maximum harm. It explores the risks posed by emerging technologies, such as new DNA synthesizing techniques that allow the creation of genetically altered or man-made viruses. And it tries in some cases to test the weapon or delivery device that terrorists might use.

Research at NBACC is already underway, in lab space that has been outsourced or borrowed from the Army's sprawling biodefense campus at Fort Detrick in Frederick. It was at this compound that the U.S. government researched and produced offensive biological weapons from the 1940s until President Richard M. Nixon halted research in 1969. The Army continues to conduct research on pathogens there.

In June, construction began on a $128 million, 160,000-square-foot facility inside the same heavily guarded compound. Space inside the eight-story, glass-and-brick structure will be divided between NBACC's two major divisions: a forensic testing center tasked with using modern sleuthing techniques to identify the possible culprits in future biological attacks; and the Biothreat Characterization Center, or BTCC, which seeks to predict what such attacks will look like.

It is the BTCC's wing that will host the airtight, ultra-secure containment labs where the most controversial research will be done. Homeland Security officials won't talk about specific projects planned or underway. But the 2004 computer slide show -- posted briefly on a Homeland Security Web site before its discovery by agency critics prompted an abrupt removal -- offers insight into NBACC's priorities.

The presentation by NBACC's then-deputy director, Lt. Col. George Korch, listed 16 research priorities for the new lab. Among them:

"Characterize classical, emerging and genetically engineered pathogens for their BTA potential.

"Assess the nature of nontraditional, novel and nonendemic induction of disease from potential BTA.

"Expand aerosol-challenge testing capacity for non-human primates.

"Apply Red Team operational scenarios and capabilities."

Courtney, the NBACC science director, acknowledged that his work would include simulating real biological threats -- but not just any threats.

"If I hear a noise on the back porch, will I turn on the light to decide whether there's something there, or go on my merry way?" Courtney asked. "But I'm only going to do [research] if I have credible information that shows it truly is a threat. It's not going to be dreamed up out of the mind of a novelist."

Administration officials note that there is a tradition for this kind of biological risk assessment, one that extends at least to the Clinton administration. In the late 1990s, for example, a clandestine project run by the Defense Department re-created a genetically modified, drug-resistant strain of the anthrax bacteria believed to have been made by Soviet bioweaponeers. Such research helped the government anticipate and prepare for emerging threats, according to officials familiar with the anthrax study.

Some arms-control experts see the comparison as troubling. They argued, then and now, that the work was a possible breach of a U.S.-negotiated international law.

[b]Legal and Other Pitfalls

The Bush administration argues that its biodefense research complies with the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, the 1972 treaty outlawing the manufacture of biological weapons, because U.S. motives are pure.

"All the programs we do are defensive in nature," said Maureen McCarthy, Homeland Security's director of research and development, who oversees NBACC. "Our job is to ensure that the civilian population of the country is protected, and that we know what the threats are."

Current and former administration officials say that compliance with the treaty hinges on intent, and that making small amounts of biowarfare pathogens for study is permitted under a broad interpretation of the treaty. Some also argue that the need for a strong biodefense in an age of genetic engineering trumps concerns over what they see as legal hair-splitting.

"How can I go to the people of this country and say, 'I can't do this important research because some arms-control advocate told me I can't'?" asked Albright, the former Homeland Security assistant secretary.

But some experts in international law believe that certain experiments envisioned for the lab could violate the treaty's ban on developing, stockpiling, acquiring or retaining microbes "of types and in quantities that have no justification" for peaceful purposes.

"The main problem with the 'defensive intent' test is that it does not reflect what the treaty actually says," said David Fidler, an Indiana University School of Law professor and expert on the bioweapons convention. The treaty, largely a U.S. creation, does not make a distinction between defensive and offensive activities, Fidler said.

More practically, arms experts say, future U.S. governments may find it harder to object if other countries test genetically engineered pathogens and novel delivery systems, invoking the same need for biodefense.

Already, they say, there is evidence abroad of what some are calling a "global biodefense boom." In the past five years, numerous governments, including some in the developing world -- India, China and Cuba among them -- have begun building high-security labs for studying the most lethal bacteria and viruses.

"These labs have become a status symbol, a prestige item," said Alan Pearson, a biologist at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. "A big question is: Will these labs have transparency?"

Secrecy May Have a Price

When it opens in two years, the NBACC lab will house an impressive collection of deadly germs and teams of scientists in full-body "spacesuits" to work with them. It will also have large aerosol-test chambers where animals will be exposed to deadly microbes. But the lab's most controversial feature may be its secrecy.

Homeland Security offic