Posted on 10/06/2014 2:07:18 AM PDT by markomalley
ISIS may already be thinking of using Ebola as a low-tech weapon of bio-terror, says a national security expert, who notes that the “Islamic State of Iraq and Syria” and terror groups like it wouldn’t even have to weaponize the virus to attempt to wreak strategic global infection.
Such groups could simply use human carriers to intentionally infect themselves in West Africa, then disseminate the deadly virus via the world’s air transportation system. Or so says Capt. Al Shimkus, Ret., a Professor of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval War College.
“The individual exposed to the Ebola Virus would be the carrier,” Shimkus told Forbes. “In the context of terrorist activity, it doesn’t take much sophistication to go to that next step to use a human being as a carrier.”
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Possible, but not likely.
First, it is too risky. Lots of their own evil Moslems might be sickened by it in the process.
Second, it just does not have the impact a bomb does. Their favorite MO. Bombs strike fast, are very showy, and obviously attributable to some perp. Disease spread is sort of...eeyhh.
“I do not care to discuss possible terrorism scenarios.”
God bless you for bringing your expertise — very helpeful, but terrorism is something I understand, and that’s what this thread is about.
I hope that by now there’s no need for me to even explain how it’s possible, easy, requires no imagination, etc.
Fair enough, incompetence of our own government is a more immediate threat. It’s demonstrated in cases such as Duncan that some fool or desperate individual could either bring it in desperate for treatment or unknowingly.
I have thought that since ISIS used Chlorine gas against Iraqi soldiers, they wouldn’t mind using it against civilians. Also, a disease that can come back to get you is dangerous, especially when ISIS wants to have an empire to rule over. How are you going to have an empire when you are loaded with the sick and dying of your own people, including even your own military personnel?
“Shimkus doesn’t think the virus would spread exponentially simply because, in theory, advanced health care systems would be equipped to identify, isolate and stop the virus.”
I want to know how they think this would work out.
Lets say that IS sends in 6 operatives. They get sick and two of them take a ride on the NY subway system. The other four take a tour through America’s hub airports. (As we’re not temperature screening, they could get pretty far)
A week or two later, we start to get our first sick. But they’re going to be missed by the screening. At first it’s only flu-like symptoms and the sick don’t have the travel history. The hospitals are going to pull the same crap as they did with Duncan, give them some fluids and antibiotics and send them home and allow them to continue to infect their families.
By the time we realize what’s happening, it’s going to be difficult to put the genie back in the bottle.
Now let’s say that this happens during the peak of the cold/flu season. How in the world are we going to be able to isolate and screen thousands for early stages of the disease?
The flu that hubs and I had last year had diarrhea, vomiting, muscle pain and a fever of 104. We were sicker than we’d ever been. If we walked into a hospital with those symptoms during an Ebola outbreak, they’d have to isolate and test us.
Now take that scenario and multiply that times 40,000.
There are bombs for biological agents. What’s key is that even with an explosion, with few exceptions, often the explosion doesn’t provide heat for a long enough duration to kill the germs. If not a bomb, well, a disguised water bottle perhaps.
Off topic a little [and maybe your knowledge can help], there’s one thing that really troubles me about Obama: why doesn’t he expdedite Zmapp? This is tobacco harvest season. Why will it take until spring?
The US Is Scrambling To Produce The Experimental Ebola Drug ZMapp [UK/Telegraph]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3210701/posts
“...they may not be able to produce more than a few hundred treatment courses by early next spring...”
“If we walked into a hospital with those symptoms during an Ebola outbreak, they’d have to isolate and test us.”
Right. BIG problem. If the solution is low budget/ mass scale, I would hate to think of Ebola patients being quarantined next to flu patients. Not to mention, the healthcare facilities [aka Obama-care compounds] would be bogged down.
I’ll carry part of this over to the ‘Ebola Surveillance Thread’:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3191066/posts?page=3139
since it mimicks flu symptoms, it would be the perfect place and time .
“How are you going to have an empire when you are loaded with the sick and dying of your own people, including even your own military personnel?”
ISIS is so exteme that even Bin Laden banned them. And if I remember correcdtly , they believe in an islamic version of Armageddon. So it would be foolish to put anything past them.
You are not expressing science, only wishful thinking.
Incompetence or complicity?
Your point is valid. All it would take is one infected human Ebola bomb in an airport security line with a bomb vest or internal bomb and BANG!!, massive infection along with a shut down airport.
Bring Out Your Dead
Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.
The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.
So far the false positive rate is 100%.
At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.
*sigh* Such is life, and death...
Two step scenario: one uninfected suicide bomber plus one infected partner.
Bomber detonates his bomb while partner, who dosed himself a couple of days prior, stands nearby but at a safe distance. Latter manages to get cut by flying debris and gets treated (and thus on the record as being at the scene), then, a few days later, begins to complain of Ebola symptoms.
As with a dirty bomb, public panic would be the real problem. Enough to disrupt financial markets if, say, this was executed on a subway at the Wall Street stop. Would you go to work the next day hoping none of your coworker had been infected and were waiting for symptoms to appear?
This scenario isn’t low tech; it’s no tech. 100% success rate.
Given the luxurious lifestyle, I would say incompetence. Terrorists know that unless they kill the president’s children, he won’t do more than waste money on useless Airstrikes.
Terrorists had enough brains to pull off 9/11 nuff said.
I wouldn't stake my life on that. Ebola Tai Forrest (Cote d'Ivorie) was discovered when researchers became infected during a necropsy on a dead chimp discovered there. While I have not been able to find information on how fresh the corpse was--if such information exists, that any virus present had been present more than two hours after death is entirely possible.
The instant the outbreak was announced I knew they would jump at the chance to do it.
Porous borders open us up to an attack that will make 9-11 look like a field day.
“Whether it would even work is another thing. Doesn’t an explosion involve a lot of very high heat?”
Although explosives do provide a short-lived high temperature blast to their immediate surroundings that is definitely not sufficient to sterilise shards of bomb casing or shrapnel etc.
For example, in Afghanistan the Taliban often cover the outside of their IEDs with human or animal shit. The effect of this is that people who are injured in such a blast, in addition to loosing limbs, get septiciemia and need antibiotic treatment to survive.
However, you are correct that viruses are much more thermolabile than pathogenic bacteria. Although, if an explosive was detonated inside an infected human body there would be much more protection from the blast heat for billions of filoviruses, so I would not dismiss this as a possible threat.
But on the other hand, ISIL are a bunch of knuckle-dragging Islamist neanderthals so I sincerely doubt that they could actually implement such a thing in the USA.
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