GERM WARFARE SCENARIO


 


R. A. Schultz


 


 


The potential for terrorist use of chemical/biological warfare is great.  Compared to nuclear devices, chemical and biological agents are more easily acquired, cheaper to produce, more difficult to detect, and can be employed against a variety of targets. Possible acts of chemical/biological terrorism include: detonation of a stolen chemical weapon or improvised chemical device; sabotage of a chemical production facility or chemical storage facility; contamination of municipal water supplies, and the spreading of bacterial or viral disease organisms among the civilian population, livestock, agricultural products, or natural resources.


 


Consider this nightmare scenario:  A radical Islamist terrorist group gains possession of a small quantity of smallpox virus spirited out from a Russian research laboratory.  The group transports several stolen vials of the virus to Iran.  Three of the terrorist group’s members, seeking martyrdom, are voluntarily infected with the virus, and become contagious within days. 


 


   In Teheran, the three board separate airliners, the first traveling to Mumbai and changing planes, going on to Hong Kong, Beijing, changing planes again, and then Tokyo.  The second martyr boards a flight first to Bucharest, then to Athens and changing planes, then to Tel Aviv.  The third boards a flight first to Rome, then  Frankfurt, changing planes to London for another plane change, then on to New York.  By now highly contagious, all the while the three are traveling, they are infecting fellow airline passengers, flight crews, airport personnel and visitors, all of whom in turn are infecting family members, fellow employees, and anyone else they come in contact with, the infection now spreading like wildfire, and as yet undetected.  At their final destinations, the three martyrs deliberately infect even more of the populace, utilizing public transportation such as buses and rail services, until the disease finally kills them. 


 


By the deliberate and aggressive spread of the disease by a small band of terrorist martyrs, despite the fact that  the disease had been officially declared to have been wiped out worldwide as of 1977, spread patterns could be achieved that would likely overwhelm the availability of anti-smallpox vaccine, resulting in a worldwide smallpox pandemic having the potential of wiping out as much as a third, perhaps more, of the world’s population. 

Safari Woman
I guess it is surprising that it hasn't already happened
  • May 11, 2019
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BlueMax372
To the best of my knowledge, it hasn't even been attempted, yet. But, as I told my CO at CG Training Center Yorktown, "If I can think of it, they can do it!"
  • May 11, 2019
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