No, it was a bio-weapon.
Infected fleas were dispensed by infiltrating brave Special Ops volunteers, who knew their odds against survivng were virtually nil, but went in anyway.
It may have been something other than the Plague. Check out this report from the Washington Times (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jan/19/al-qaeda-bungles-arms-experiment/)
“An al Qaeda affiliate in Algeria closed a base earlier this month after an experiment with unconventional weapons went awry, a senior U.S. intelligence official said Monday.
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.
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.
‘We don’t know if this is biological or chemical,’ the official said.”
~~~~~~~~~~snip~~~~~~~
“Al Qaeda is believed by U.S. and Western experts to have been pursuing biological weapons since at least the late 1990s. A 2005 report on unconventional weapons drafted by a commission led by former Sen. Charles Robb, Virginia Democrat, and federal appeals court Judge Laurence Silberman concluded that al Qaeda’s biological weapons program ‘was extensive, well organized and operated two years before the Sept. 11’ terror attacks in the U.S....”