Hmm. The Washington Times cites a national security source who disputes the Sun report of the plague killing some al Qaeda members in Algeria.
He said authorities in the first week of January intercepted an urgent communication between the leadership of al Qaeda in the Land of the Maghreb (AQIM) and al Qaeda's leadership in the tribal region of Pakistan on the border with Afghanistan. The communication suggested that an area sealed to prevent leakage of a biological or chemical substance had been breached, according to the official.
Good luck trying to get to the bottom of that one. Did a covert op give them a bug? Did they just catch it? Or was it a weapon of their own gone wrong?
The official, who spoke on the condition he not be named because of the sensitive nature of the issue, said he could not confirm press reports that the accident killed at least 40 al Qaeda operatives, but he said the mishap led the militant group to shut down a base in the mountains of Tizi Ouzou province in eastern Algeria.
Well, dead is dead, I guess.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Bio-Weapon Gone Wrong Killed Algerian Terrorists?
Boy, I must admit, sometimes I'm a real idiot.
Forty members of Al Qaeda die of the plague, and I thought nothing of it. I figured, well, they hang out in caves, with rats, they don't have medical care, of course, they are likely to get sick and die. I didn't believe we gave them the plague,
so end of story.
Right?
I didn't even consider that they might have been experimenting with a bio-weapon they intended to use on us.
And now that I am considering that possibility here at 5:00 AM, I realize I'd rather go back to bed. But instead, I'll post this story:
Have a nice day.
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Ken Alibek
Pastorius
Are they sure it was bubonic plague? If the communique only "suggested" an area was breached -- in other words used guarded language -- is it likely the form of infection was specified? Bubonic is treatable with antibiotics and is not spread by human contact. I'd have expected smallpox, anthrax or a hemorrhagic like ebola or another dramatic contact-spread disease. Of course, untreated BP kills on its own but also develop into pneumonia, sepsis or meningitis. But would even AQ not have antibiotics on hand for the bubonic form? Someone might have tacked that assumption on somewhere down the line of information.
Nevertheless, if the report that a sealed off area was breached is true it really can only mean one thing: a bio or chemical weapon experimental area. That fits well with the recent warnings about bio or chemical weapons attacks from AQ as well as Biden's blurted warning about being "tested". If that was the main base we may have either caught some good luck or good covert work. If it was just one of several...
I have to get to work (Social Security and part-time starts next week, it can't come fast enough) so I don't have time to look stuff up but science writer Richard Preston is good on this subject.
We need to stay on top of this one. I think you're right, there's much more going on here.
BTW, no lie, the word verification this time is "ratic". Ooo-ee-oooooo...
Pastorius
Are they sure it was bubonic plague? If the communique only "suggested" an area was breached -- in other words used guarded language -- is it likely the form of infection was specified? Bubonic is treatable with antibiotics and is not spread by human contact. I'd have expected smallpox, anthrax or a hemorrhagic like ebola or another dramatic contact-spread disease. Of course, untreated BP kills on its own but also develop into pneumonia, sepsis or meningitis. But would even AQ not have antibiotics on hand for the bubonic form? Someone might have tacked that assumption on somewhere down the line of information.
Nevertheless, if the report that a sealed off area was breached is true it really can only mean one thing: a bio or chemical weapon experimental area. That fits well with the recent warnings about bio or chemical weapons attacks from AQ as well as Biden's blurted warning about being "tested". If that was the main base we may have either caught some good luck or good covert work. If it was just one of several...
I have to get to work (Social Security and part-time starts next week, it can't come fast enough) so I don't have time to look stuff up but science writer Richard Preston is good on this subject.
We need to stay on top of this one. I think you're right, there's much more going on here.
BTW, no lie, the word verification this time is "ratic". Ooo-ee-oooooo...
Assuming all this to be true, is there any increased alert in Iraq or Afghanistan? Living carriers of the plague, or whatever else it might be would be one hell of a suicide bomb to distribute in that, or any other area of the world.
Be on alert, I have been expecting this play for some time. A jihadist Bio attack is more realistic and simpler to successfully execute than a Nuclear attack. This camp is probably one of many spread around the world. The discovery and publication of the this incident may also bring forward the date of deployment. For all we know deployment could already have happened....
Good find Pastorius, your right to be concerned.
One, could that message actually have been encoded to mean Praise Allah!(pestilence be upon him) We tried it on 40 "volunteers" and it works!
Two. There are at least a million people running around Washington DC today. From all over the country. All over the world in fact. This is one of those times I hope I'm just being paranoid.
Sorry about the double-post.
RRA,
Bubonic Plague is not spread by human contact?
So, how did all those people get it? From rat shit?
Sorry to tell you, this time you've got incorrect information:
http://science.jrank.org/pages/1057/Bubonic-Plague.html
Bubonic plague is a contagious, deadly disease caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Sometimes referred to simply as "the plague," this disease has played a major role in world history. Because plague is highly contagious, it is easily transmitted from one person to another. Worldwide epidemics of the disease (called pandemics) have decimated populations since A.D. 542, when the first evidence of plague was recorded. Plague is rarely seen in the United States today, but is still epidemic in Southeast Asia.
The original Sun article is a few posts further down, put up yesterday.
Ok, it's quite a few (we were a yackity bunch yesterday ;>)
Titled 1340 alert.
Yeah, we had the story up yesterday (thanks to Midnight Rider).
I hope Watcher's prediction is wrong.
When I think about it, the plague would be a stupid bio-weapon because, as RRA said, we can actually deal with it here in the Western world, whereas, the Middle East has almost no ability to deal with it.
In other words, the Muslim world would suffer much worse than us.
I'm no doctor, but my wife is. Bubonic plague can indeed be passed from one human to another.
That's exactly true about being able to deal with it although if it were widespread enough medical services may be severely strained.
At the same time, though, imagine the panic it would create in those first days of an outbreak, the chaos, as a public generally unaware of medical advancements goes apeshit, fueled by a Media that would no doubt keep refering to it as the Black Death giving editorials and color about how horrible it is to die from this and, oh, by the way, don't forget to take your penicillan.
Although I do think there may be disinformation here. They were working on something really nasty, womething didn't go as planned and used plague to cover it up.
The sources I consulted differentiated between bubonic plague, which is spread via bites from rat fleas, and pneumonic plague which is an airborne bacteria and can be spread like the flue by inhalation and transmitting between humans. And that one is the more deadly one. But most people have heard about the Bubonic plague, the "Black Death", which would give it a higher panic factor.
Hi RRA,
Pneumonic plague is a stage of Bubonic Plague.
Here's what AOW found:
Apparently, there are earlier and later stages. From this source, but I don't know reliable it is:
In the early stages, it's called bubonic plague and is spread primarily by insects. In the case of the Black Death in Europe, it was spread by fleas which traveled from place to place on rats. The later stage is called pneumonic plague and is extremely contagious, spread through coughing.
Panic is certainly part of their gamebook. And if they can kill a few Infidels with the real thing along the way, so much the better.
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