Bio-Weapon Gone Wrong Killed Algerian Terrorists?

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.

Comments

[Lala]

I hope it's the plague. They say it kills within hours of contracting it.

[mrkwong]

If information like this, properly spread around the - dare one say? - ignorant population of the areas AQ likes to frequent, causes them either to reject the AQ presence or to flee and leave the poxy remnants of AQ standing out like the proverbial sore thumbs to the cameras of friendly neighborhood Predators, then so much the better. We'll just have to make sure our guys are properly protected when they go in to figure out who we blew up.

[mark l.]

skeptical about the 'plague'.

they would have two methods of getting it...
find it occurring in an individual or nature, or the far more likely method of getting it from an existing lab sample. I'm skeptical about the latter and doubt their diligence/skill on the former.

The incubation time would also allow for travel, and there is little liklihood that they can actually contain it on sight. If the plague story doesn't 'spread' it probably was hoax. Given the efficacy of treating it with antibiotics and a large window of administering, not the greatest weapon to use.

I'm skeptical about the whole story to be honest...

40 dead? IF they were working with a bio weapon, I'd think they'd be more inclined to a lab setting, with far fewer foot soldiers nearby. VX is still widely available, and, if the story is true, the most likely culprit.

[Mark Buehner]

Considering this a good thing is awfully short-sighted. Kinda like cheering for the Manhattan Project team developing cancer. That Sun article about hygiene is nonsense. A bug that can reliably kill that percentage of people in that amount of time would be a serious weapon. If the Sun is at all accurate, this is a scary story.

[Lala]

On the sidebar to the Sun story

"The last outbreak in 1665 claimed the lives of 30,000 Londoners.

Nowadays the plague can be treated with antibiotics and deaths are rare. It has become virtually unheard of in the developed world.

But the World Health Organisation still reports several thousand cases a year, mainly in southern Asia, southern Africa and central America.

Between 1989 and 2003 there were more than 38,000 cases — causing 2,845 deaths — in 25 countries. The last known major outbreak started in China’s Yunan Province in 1865.

Fleas on rats spread the plague to neighbouring India, causing 12million deaths. It was still killing 200 people a year until 1959. The US and Peru had four non-fatal cases in 2002."

[Dick Stanley]

There's bubonic plaque, the 1665 kind, spread by rodents and fleas, which resurfaces in small numbers periodically. Then there's the pneumonic form, the one the biowarfare folks try to aerosalize. It spreads quickly, via coughing. Treatable, yes. But it kills within hours.

[Rolyat]

Dear mrkwong:

No regrets for dead enemies.
Nevertheless, hot-bug bio-warfare is dangerous to U.S. interests;
not to mention dishonorable.

[Harry Toor]

It's likely that a covert attack on the camp led to a release of the virus which inturn affected the terrorists. They then sent a comunique back to leadership in Pakistan that things weren't going well.

[Ben]

First off, there really is no indication this is a bioweapon. There is no information or evidence as to whether it is not. But I will note that the report is of a lack of medical facilities or medicines to treat the plague in third world nations.

I doubt it is a bio weapon, either intentionally deployed by our side, or unintentionally deployed in the bad guys' faces. I don't think our side would take the dumb risk of collateral damage, and if their side were messing around with a bioweapon, it seems they just might have a few samples of the cure around the place, "just in case".

If true, it seems most likely to be that some jihadies brought a bug back home, and it got spread around.

[cts22]

My understanding is that it was blankets seeded with smallpox that were supplied by the U.S. Calvary.

[SacTownMan]

I think I have our culprit!

This video was just released by Al Jazeera!

My god the inhumanity of those Americans!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68v4g6ZjNlw

[Nancy Reyes]

plague is endemic in rat fleas in the oran area according to a 2003 study...

check how they handled their garbage before shouting bioweapon

[SacTownMan]

Sorry Nancy but my background in medicine has me convinced from the video link it is most D-E-F-I-N-I-T-E-L-Y
a "bioweapon"!

[Dr. Robotnik]

"My understanding is that it was blankets seeded with smallpox that were supplied by the U.S. Calvary."
Posted by: cts22 | Tuesday, January 20, 2009 at 12:08 AM

If only al Qaeda knew more about American history. Maybe they wouldn't have taken the blankets from the U.S. Calvary. I wonder what the Calvary was doing in Pakistan anyway. You think they still grow big handlebar moustaches and had tassled gloves? Horses would be a good way to get around in that part of the world I suppose.

The mind boggles.

[Dr. Robotnik]

"I think I have our culprit! This video was just released by Al Jazeera!"

Posted by: SacTownMan | Tuesday, January 20, 2009 at 12:26 AM

"How 'bout s'more beans Mr. Achmed?"

"SILENCE! I shall say you have had enough."

[mrkwong]

rolyat - From the standpoint of how they're to be killed, I don't care what it is, or even if it's real at all; the desired outcome is that those around them, among whom they characteristically hide, decide is IS real and act to separate themselves far enough that we can waste the whole lot of AQ folks with HE without inflicting significant civilian casualties.

As for honor - what was the old line about the most important thing a gentleman learns is when not to be one? Obviously, one does not want a situation that can't be contained, and I would not want to see us starting something that would spread. If they've hoist themselves with their own biopetard I will evince some concern over containing it even as I remain just as gleeful over their passing as I would had it been inflicted by Hellfires flying up their urethrae.

[RebeccaH]

Hard to say if this was an accident of nature, or a deliberate bungling of an attempted bioweapon. Bubonic plague periodically turns up in the American southwest (though not in such numbers, usually no more than five cases, thanks to our modern health care). But it is interesting that the AQIM would communicate that "things are not going well" with al-Qaeda, and even more interesting that, if it truly was a bioweapon experiment ordered by al-Qaeda, they made sure it was conducted far, far away from their leadership in Pakistan.

[Mike K]

Plague is endemic in California, in the ground squirrel population. There is a case about every two years. In the 1920s there was a pneumonic plague outbreak in Los Angeles that killed a number of doctors and nurses.

[AzCat]

Plague is endemic everywhere in the Southwestern United States. Check out the small print warnings about rodent contact next time you visit a national park there.

[Marvin]

Karl Rove's parting gift.

Black Death to honor Barack Hussein Obama.

[beb]

My understanding of bioweapons is that they are most effective if they have a long gestation period. That means more are infected and even better if the victims don't die too quickly because that requires more medical care.

A fast acting organism is too quickly contained and stopped.

Somebody educate me on this please.

[Flounder]

It's not natural plague, takes too long and you have to live with the rats.... wait a second!

I think its either VX (delivered in a package) or the beans!

This is an awesome website. You guys made my day!

[DeltaWhiskey]

My understanding is that it was blankets seeded with smallpox that were supplied by the U.S. Calvary.
Posted by: cts22 | Tuesday, January 20, 2009 at 12:08 AM

Your understanding is false. Ward Churchill, formerly a professor in Colorado, fabricated a fictitious story about the U.S. Army deliberately supplying blankets with smallpox to tribes on the Upper Missouri River. No such event occurred. Ward Churchill is a highly vocal supporter of the Al Qaeda terrorists who murdered thousands on 9-11, and he has described those victims as NAZIs who deserved to die. His political activities on behalf of the foreign terrorists, alleged involvement in plagiarism, and fabricaiton of the biowarfare fiction, and other notorious activities resulted in his resignation from his tenured position.

The only case of such biowarfare against the Amerindians of North America known to be documented is the incident during Pontiac's War of the French and Indian Wars in which Captain Ecuyer of the British Army wrote a letter reporting how he sent the hostile Indians a gift of two blankets from the hospital's smallpox ward and hoped they would have the desired effect. While Lord Amherst wrote about the desirability of doing so to Colonel Bouguet, there is no evidence to show whether Col. Bouquet did so or refrained due to his expressed worries about the safety of his own soldiers and Indian allies.

Al Qaeda has already spent a number of years working on bioweapons. This has been documented in many ways, including the handbook captured in England some years ago.

[Larry Cox]

There is a mention in Chernow's Alexander Hamilton bio that at the siege of Yorktown Cornwallis infected some local slaves with smallpox and tried to send them into American lines to infect Wahington's army. I could not find Chernow's source for this story, but there it is.

[Javert]

Inshallah!

[Javert]

Inshallah!

[Javert]

Inshallah!

[Korla Pundit]

Black Death?!?!?!?!

That's racist!

[Stan]

I worked in a gold mine in Kyrgyzstan for a few years, we were told to stay away from the marmots there because they could carry the Black Plague.

[willis]

"Kinda like cheering for the Manhattan Project team developing cancer."

No Mark, its kind of like cheering for the Nazi buzz bombs to blow up on their launching sites, killing Nazi scientists. Unless of course you support the terrorists, then your analogy would be appropriate.

[Mal]

I can't see how anything that might eradicate what Kathy Shaidle correctly calls "Belligerent Islam" can be "dishonorable". You might as well say that destroying a tumour in the treatment of cancer is dishonourable.

[Oh, bother]

According to Laurie Garrett in her respected book *The Coming Plague*,the Soviet bioweapon of choice was bubonic plague, perhaps influenced by their proximity to the great Central Asian rodent loci (the source of the Black Death and probably of the Plague of Justinian). Their research facility is in Obolensk in southern Siberia. As with Soviet nukes, not all their research materials can be accounted for.

[Anna D]

I don't care how they die; just that they die. Good riddance to rabid non-human creatures. I would never insult an animal by calling them animals.

[Lala]

The comments being left at the Sun are pretty good - here's one

sharke

How fitting that a disease from the Middle Ages is wiping out people whose mindset is stuck in that exact time period!

This is fantastic news.

[Fred Beloit]

Canada prevents a terrorist trying to enter their country from the U.S. Good work, friends:
http://www.stoptheaclu.com/archives/2009/01/20/american-terrorist-booted-out-of-canada/

[fernstalbert]

I am fascinated by this story and have found at least three other references on the net. If they aquired black death by living with fleas, then they died like the insects that they were. If its a result of a bio weapon they were trying to deploy, then the good news is that it worked and they only have themselves to thank for a speedy journey to heaven to all those perpetual virgins(on a slightly different tack - does anyone ever ask the virgins if they want these flea-infested individuals). If its a result of stealth against the enemy, then our side should claim plausible deniability and not take credit for their demise. I don't much care how this result was achieved - works for me. Cheers and have a good day.

[Thomass]

Posted by: Rolyat | Monday, January 19, 2009 at 11:52 PM

"No regrets for dead enemies.
Nevertheless, hot-bug bio-warfare is dangerous to U.S. interests;
not to mention dishonorable."

I think he meant use a bomb and then blame Al Q's losses on their 'lab work'...

Our actually using this kind of stuff would be insane (not just dishonorable). A couple birds could spread it to a city and from there... on and on...