A somewhat innoculous article appeared in UK’s Sun yesterday by Alex West… apparently 40 AQ cockroches died as a result of Black Death… aka, The Plague.
The killer bug, also known as the plague, swept through insurgents training at a forest camp in Algeria, North Africa. It came to light when security forces found a body by a roadside.
The victim was a terrorist in AQLIM (al-Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb), the largest and most powerful al-Qaeda group outside the Middle East.
It trains Muslim fighters to kill British and US troops.
Now al-Qaeda chiefs fear the plague has been passed to other terror cells — or Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.
~~~
The al-Qaeda epidemic began in the cave hideouts of AQLIM in Tizi Ouzou province, 150km east of the capital Algiers. The group, led by wanted terror boss Abdelmalek Droudkal, was forced to turn its shelters in the Yakouren forest into mass graves and flee.The extremists supporting madman Osama bin Laden went to Bejaia and Jijel provinces — hoping the plague did not go with them.
A source said: “The emirs (leaders) fear surviving terrorists will surrender to escape a horrible death.”
While yesterday’s article attributed it to poor living conditions in their hidouts, West has an update today that quotes one expert on chemical warfare suggesting the deaths were due to development of a bio-weapon that backfired on the inept terror cell.
THE al-Qaeda cell wiped out by Black Death may have infected ITSELF while developing biological weapons, it emerged last night.
The terrorists planned to wreak havoc on Western targets but fell victims to their own weapon, a leading expert on chemical warfare believes.
It was thought they caught the disease through poor living conditions in their forest hideouts.
But Dr Igor Khrupinov, of Georgia University, said: “Al-Qaeda is known to experiment with biological weapons. And this group has direct communication with other cells around the world.
“Contagious diseases, like ebola and anthrax, occur in northern Africa. It makes sense that people are trying to use them against Western governments.”
Dr Khrupinov, once arms adviser to Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev, added: “Instead of using bombs, people with infectious diseases could be walking through cities.”
~~~Black Death HAS been researched as a biological weapon before.
And al-Qaeda boss Osama bin Laden’s fanatics were experimenting with anthrax in Afghanistan in 2001.
Last year it was revealed 100 suspected terrorists tried to become students in Britain, giving them access to labs.
In 2006 a plot to poison London’s water was unmasked.
This notion it was a bio/chem weapon development is echoed by a US senior intel officer, confirmed in a WA Times article yesterday.
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.
Would loved to have seen those emails…. “Dear Head Honcho: oops!”
Too bad that a plague can’t target only those in the global Islamic jihad movement. Certainly would save a ton of warfare on the part of the western civilization. Unfortunately, depending upon the strain (i.e. Pneumonic Plague, which is infectuous via airborne particles), inept idiots tinkering around with bio-weaponry can spread to innocent civilians…. perhaps even those who were not the terrorists intended targets.
One can only hope these rats carried it back to their jihad nests, and that it remains confined there. That way only they suffer the consequences of their evil deeds.
Vietnam era Navy wife, indy/conservative, and an official California escapee now residing as a red speck in the sea of Oregon blue.
There is a region where I live that is constantly closed down because of the plague. It’s a natural event. The region also hosts Rocky Moutain fever and rabies. If you get bit by a flea, tick or other animal there, it’s best to see a doctor.
Yup, Gregory. Been to many a Telluride festival – living with daily Rocky Mountain tick warnings. This, however, is suspected of an experiment gone awry, as a senior intel officer also confirms in a WA Times article yesterday.
The plague has been used many times before as a bio-weapon. In sieges of old, the siege teams used to toss the plague riddled bodies over the castle walls, in both directions.
Fitting deaths.
Be sure you read the first comment.
http://furtheradventuresofindigored.blogspot.com/2009/01/al-qaeda-plague-maybe-self-inflicted.html
How long before this is blamed on President Bush?
I hope this turns out to be true. No virgins for them!
The article says, “Now al-Qaeda chiefs fear the plague has been passed to other terror cells — or Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.” We can hope and pray that it has been passed ALL terror cells.
tHis made my freaking day! I was all bummed out with the Its “A Brand New Obama Day” stuff on the radio, TV, everywhere for godsakes! The I came across this article. I will go to bed tonite a happy man. I just hope and pray that stuff dies out before it gets over hear, or kills some innocent people.
Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever is not the same disease/bacteria as the Black Plague and is not transferred by tick bites. The Black Plague is very rare and specifically refers to the Bubonic Plague:
http://rarediseases.about.com/cs/bubonicplague/a/111602.htm
bill-tb is correct, the plague ridden bodies in the past were often catapulted or dumped over walls in hopes that the enemy might contract the disease. Fleas have a relatively short lifespan, for it to really to work worth a damn and be effective, you really need a sizable enough rat population for the fleas to transfer to, infest, and propagate on. The bacteria grows in the lymph nodes of a living host and will usually kill the host after a few days, and fleas carrying the disease don’t like “dead blood” so they would have to seek out another living host.
The Bubonic Plague, AKA Black Death, from which the old song “Ring Around the Rosie” originated is extremely uncommon and virtually non-existent outside of laboratories except as a biological weapon. I guess this explains what may have happened with some of Iraq’s WMD stores. The Bubonic Plague was on the list of biological agents Iraq was known to have acquired samples of. Oh of course, I forget, there was never an Iraq-Al Queda connection was there? Shame on me for even suggesting such a thing. “Bad Rocky!”
The primary mode of transfer was specifically via bites from a parasitic fleas species which infested rodents. The odd thing is, why Al Queda would choose this particular disease. The logistics of having to raise colonies of flea on contaminated host rats would pose a serious risk to anyone doing it in the first place, and there are several antibiotics that can be successfully used as a cure that are widely available. The only feasible target for such a weapon would be third world countries with extremely poor and backwards health-care systems and large rat populations to keep it going:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubonic_plague
Still, I also think they are reaping what they have sown.