Future Forms of Terrorism: Threat of Biological Weapons and Bio-Terrorism

1
Future Forms of Terrorism Threat of Biological
Weapons and Bio-Terrorism Assoc. Prof. MUSTAFA
KIBAROGLU Department of International
RelationsBILKENT UNIVERSITY 27 January 2006

• DEFINITION, DIMENSION CATEGORIES OF TERRORISM
• CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE DEFENCE AGAINST TERRORISM
• TURKISH GENERAL STAFF
• ANKARA - TURKEY
• 23 - 27 January 2006

2
Future Forms of Terrorism Threat of Biological
Weapons and Bio-TerrorismSeminar byAssoc. Prof.
Mustafa Kibaroglu

• We stand on the threshold of a new era in which
  hundreds of millions of people will at least be
  safe from some form of the worlds most terrible
  diseases We also stand on the brink of a global
  crisis in infectious diseases. No country is safe
  from them. No country can any longer afford to
  ignore their threat.
•  
• Dr. Hiroshi Nakajima
• Former Director General
• World Health Organization (WHO)
•  
•  
• Biological warfare is the deliberate spreading
  of (infectious) diseases among humans, animals,
  and plants in order to cause incapacitation or
  death of the target population.
• Hon. Prof. Graham S. Pearson CB
• Former Director General
• Chemical Biological Defence Establishment
• Porton Down, Salisbury, England

3
Future Forms of Terrorism Threat of Biological
Weapons and Bio-TerrorismSeminar byAssoc. Prof.
Mustafa Kibaroglu

• Topics of the Day
• Biological Agents of Military Significance
•  
• Characteristics and Symptoms of Some Anti-Human
  Biological Agents
•  
• Past Record of Uses of Biological Agents for
  Military Purposes
•  
• Knowledge Required to Manufacture Biological
  Weapons
•  
• Military-Strategic Advantages Drawbacks of
  Biological Weapons
•  
• An Emerging Threat Bio-Terrorism
•  
• Means of Protection Active Passive Defences
•  
• International Efforts to Counter the Threat of
  Biological Weapons

4
Future Forms of Terrorism Threat of Biological
Weapons and Bio-TerrorismSeminar byAssoc. Prof.
Mustafa Kibaroglu

• Biological Agents of Military Significance
•  
• Bacteria Single-cell organisms that cause
  diseases as anthrax, plague, and tularemia.
  Although many pathogenic bacteria are susceptible
  to antibiotic drugs, strains can be selected that
  are resistant to antibiotic and occur naturally.
  Bacteria can be readily grown in artificial media
  using facilities similar to those found in the
  brewery industry
•  
• Virus 100 times smaller than bacteria and occur
  in large numbers in nature. Among
  disease-producing viruses are smallpox, Ebola,
  and Venezuelan equine encephalitis. Viruses must
  be grown on living tissue and they can mutate
  naturally or be genetically engineered to
  increase their effectiveness
• Rickettsiae Similar to bacteria in structure and
  form but must be grown on living tissue. Diseases
  caused by rickettsiae include Q-fever, typhus,
  and Rocky Mountain spotted fever
•  
• Fungi Occur greatly in nature and could be used
  to destroy crops. Relatively few species appear
  to have potential for deliberate use against
  humans. The fungal pathogens that cause hardship
  and famine are potato blight and cereal rust
•  
• Toxins Non-living products of micro-organisms,
  plants or living creatures such as botulinum
  toxin, ricin from castor beans, or saxitoxin from
  shellfish. Toxins can only affect those exposed
  to the toxin and cannot produce transmissible
  diseases.

5
Future Forms of Terrorism Threat of Biological
Weapons and Bio-TerrorismSeminar byAssoc. Prof.
Mustafa Kibaroglu

• Characteristics and Symptoms of Some Anti-Human
  Biological Agents
• Type of Name of Incubation Length
  of Effective Symptoms
• Agent Agent Period
  Illness Dosage Effects
•  
• Bacteria Bacillus Anthracis 1 to 6 day
  3 to 5 days 10,000 Fever and fatigue often
  (anthrax) spores followed by improvement,
  then abrupt onset of severe
  respiratory problems shock
  pneumonia and death within 2-3 days
•  
• Yersinia pestis 2 to 10 day 1 to 2 days
  100 to Malaise, high fever, can lead
  (bubonic plague) 20,000 to
  hemorrhage (shed blood),
  organisms circulatory failure and death
•  
• Brucella Suis 1 to 3 week days
  1,300 Fever and chills, headache,
  (brucellosis) organisms loss
  of appetite, mental depression, extreme
  fatigue
•  
• Pasteurella 3 to 5 days half of 10 to
  50 General pain, an irritant, tularensis
  victims die organisms
  cough, feeling of general (tularemia)
  in 30 days illness

6
Future Forms of Terrorism Threat of Biological
Weapons and Bio-TerrorismSeminar byAssoc. Prof.
Mustafa Kibaroglu

• Characteristics and Symptoms of Some Anti-Human
  Biological Agents (continued)
• Type of Name of Incubation Length of
  Effective Symptoms
• Agent Agent Period Illness
  Dosage Effects
•  
• Viruses Venezulean 1 to 5 days days to
  25 Fever, chills, gastro- equine
  weeks infectious intestinal
  hemorrage, encephalitis
  units severe headache, nausea, vomiting,
  can lead to coma, shock and death
  
• Rickettsiae Coxiella burnetii 10 to 20 days 2
  days to 10 or less Pneumonia, cough, chest
  (Q-fever) 2 weeks organisms pain
• Toxins Saxitoxin minutes to fatal after
  150 Dizziness, paralysis of
  hours inhalation micrograms
  muscles of respiration, and causes death
  in minutes
• Botulinum Toxin hours to days 1 to 3 days
  70 Dizziness, dry throat
  nanograms mouth, blurred
  vision abrupt respiratory failure,
  and causes death
•  
• Ricin hours days
  200 Rapid onset of nausea,
  micrograms
  vomiting, cramps, vascular
  collapse, fever and cough

7
Future Forms of Terrorism Threat of Biological
Weapons and Bio-TerrorismSeminar byAssoc. Prof.
Mustafa Kibaroglu

• Potential Effects of Biological Agents If Used
  for Military or Terrorist Purposes
•  
• Disseminating by airplane of 50 kg of an agent
  Along a 2 km line upwind of a population of
  500,000.
•  
• Agent Downwind Reach (km) Dead
  Incapacitated
•  
• Tick-Borne Encephalitis 1 9,500 35,000
•  
• Typhus 5 19,000 85,000
•  
• Brucellosis 10 500 100,000
•  
• Q-fever gt 20 150 125,000
•  
• Tularemia gt 20 30,000 125,000
•  
• Anthrax gtgt 20 95,000 125,000
•  

8
Future Forms of Terrorism Threat of Biological
Weapons and Bio-TerrorismSeminar byAssoc. Prof.
Mustafa Kibaroglu

• Past Record of Military Uses of Biological
  Warfare Agents
•  
• 1346-1347 Mongols catapult corpses contaminated
  with plague over the walls into Kaffa (in
  Crimea), forcing besieged Genovans to flee
•  
• 1710 Russian troops allegedly used
  plague-infected corpses against Swedes
•  
• 1767 During the French and Indian Wars, the
  British gave blankets used to wrap British
  smallpox victims to hostile Indian tribes
•  
• 1916-1918 German agents used anthrax and the
  equine disease glanders to infect livestock and
  feed for export to Allied forces. Incidents
  include the infection of Romanian sheep with
  anthrax and glanders for export to Russia,
  Argentinian mules with anthrax for export to
  Allied troops, and American horses fed with
  glanders for export to France
•  
• 1937 Japan began its offensive biological
  weapons program. Over the course of the program,
  at least 10,000 prisoners are killed in Japanese
  experiments
•  
• 1939 Nomonhan Incident - Japanese poisoned
  Soviet water supply with intestinal typhoid
  bacteria at former Mongolian border. First use of
  biological weapons by Japanese

9
Future Forms of Terrorism Threat of Biological
Weapons and Bio-TerrorismSeminar byAssoc. Prof.
Mustafa Kibaroglu

• Past Record of Military Uses of Biological
  Warfare Agents (continued)
•  
• 1940 The Japanese dropped rice and wheat mixed
  with plague-carrying fleas over China and
  Manchuria
•  
• 1942-1943 Great Britain conducted trials on
  Gruinard Island off the northwest coast of
  Scotland to investigate the feasibility of
  biological warfare. The British government
  decontaminated the Gruinard Island in 1986 and
  returned the island to its original owners in
  1990
•  
• June, 1966 The United States conducted a test of
  vulnerability to covert BW attack by releasing a
  harmless biological simulant into the New York
  City subway system
• April 2, 1979 Outbreak of pulmonary anthrax in
  Sverdlovsk, Soviet Union. In 1992, Russian
  president Boris Yeltsin acknowledges that the
  outbreak was caused by an accidental release of
  anthrax spores from a Soviet military
  microbiological facility

10
Future Forms of Terrorism Threat of Biological
Weapons and Bio-TerrorismSeminar byAssoc. Prof.
Mustafa Kibaroglu

• Knowledge Required to Manufacture Biological
  Weapons
•  
• ...The most elemental step for the production of
  biological agents is acquisition of a seedstock
  of agent. This step is easy to accomplish.
  Biological agents can be isolated from their
  natural sources, or a seedstock can be requested
  from culture collections, or obtained from anyone
  who has micro-organisms for medical or research
  purposes. The next step is to grow the amount
  desired. Actual production of agent requires
  simple equipment such as fermenters and other
  containers and an understanding of microbiology
  and how growth media work. The scientific
  know-how and equipment to culture micro-organisms
  are essential capabilities pervasive in the
  biotechnology industry all over the world.
•  
• The infective dose of the potential biological
  agent
•  
• The method of attack on the target population
  (e.g., inhalation, ingestion, or by an insect
  vector)
•  
• The means of dispersion of the biological agent
•  
• The ability of the biological agent to survive
  until it reaches the target
•  
• The time to effect or cause disease in the
  target population
•  
• The biological agent needs to be producible.

11
Future Forms of Terrorism Threat of Biological
Weapons and Bio-TerrorismSeminar byAssoc. Prof.
Mustafa Kibaroglu

• Military-Strategic Advantages Drawbacks of
  Biological Weapons
•  
• Advantages
•  
• Since biological agents (except toxins) multiply
  inside the host bodies, small amounts --just a
  few micro-organisms of a biological agent-- may
  be sufficient to devastate a crop, a herd of
  animals, and a citys inhabitants
•  
• Effects of biological agents take time to
  develop. A number of days or weeks must
  transpire, depending on the micro-organism and
  the rate at which it multiplies in the body
• Due to delayed effects of biological agents they
  can be used for attacking fixed targets such as
  airbases, ports, naval headquarters, troop
  assembly areas, and logistic concentrations
•  
• The delayed effect of biological agents makes
  attribution difficult, especially when an endemic
  disease is used. Hence, it is plausible to both
  hide and deny biological weapons attack
•  
• The cost of establishing a biological weapons
  program has steadily reduced with the advances in
  microbiology and biotechnology that make agent
  production much easier. The comparative cost of
  civilian casualties is 2,000/km2 with
  conventional weapons, 800 with nuclear weapons,
  and 1 with biological weapons (poor mans
  atomic bomb)

12
Future Forms of Terrorism Threat of Biological
Weapons and Bio-TerrorismSeminar byAssoc. Prof.
Mustafa Kibaroglu

• Military-Strategic Advantages Drawbacks of
  Biological Weapons (continued)
•  
• Drawbacks
• Because of the delayed effects of biological
  agents they may not be effectively used in the
  battlefield
•  
• The area that will be contaminated by biological
  weapons will have to be decontaminated by proper
  methods while the result may not be assuring.
  Hence, military victory over the combatant may
  not be coupled with territorial gain
•  
• Effective dissemination of biological weapons is
  a challenging task because the biological agent
  is a fragile living organism that has to survive
  until it reaches the target. If bombs or rockets
  are employed to disseminate the agent, the heat
  and shock produced by the detonation of the
  explosive may kill the living micro-organisms
•  
• Once living micro-organisms are dispersed into
  the atmosphere, the agents will then be exposed
  to environmental and climatic conditions. Hence,
  effectiveness of biological weapons will be
  determined, among others, by meteorological
  conditions. The distance downwind at which an
  effective dose will be delivered to the target
  population will be determined by local weather
  condition. For instance, under ideal conditions,
  such as calm night with steady wind, the agent
  will probably be disseminated over hundreds of
  kilometers, while under turbulent, sunny
  conditions the distance that the agent will be
  carried downwind will be greatly reduced, and a
  proportion of the agents may be killed before
  reaching the target population

13
Future Forms of Terrorism Threat of Biological
Weapons and Bio-TerrorismSeminar byAssoc. Prof.
Mustafa Kibaroglu

• An Emerging Threat Bio-Terrorism
•  
• Since weaponization of biological agents does
  not require extremely demanding high technology
  and since biological agents are rather easily
  accessible, well organized terrorist groups
  including members from various scientific fields
  have the potential to produce biological weapons.
  For instance the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo
  which is responsible for the Sarin attack in the
  Tokyo subway in March 1995 is known to have a
  cadre of thousands of scientists, engineers,
  technicians and experts in various disciplines
•  
• Because of the low cost of producing biological
  weapons, terrorist groups can afford such a
  lethal weapon which may cause mass casualties
•  
• Biological agents can be dispersed by simple
  non-military vehicles such as civilian aircraft,
  agricultural sprayers, a van equipped with a fan
  and specialized ventilators, or by simply
  choosing an upwind location close to population
  areas
•  
• As rivalry between big country - small country
  sharpens, small countries may resort to war by
  proxy strategy by giving wide support to
  terrorist groups equipped with biological agents
  produced by the sponsor state
•  
• For the time being the likelihood of a
  biological terrorist attack is not high. However,
  this is a typical low probability high
  consequences scenario. Thus, states need to take
  elaborate and costly counter-measures.

14
Future Forms of Terrorism Threat of Biological
Weapons and Bio-TerrorismSeminar byAssoc. Prof.
Mustafa Kibaroglu

• Means of Protection Active Passive Defenses
•  
• Active Defense
•  
• Preventing delivery systems by military means
  reaching the vicinity of the target population by
  intercepting and destroying incoming delivery
  vehicles
•  
• Preemptive strike against the potential
  aggressors biological weapons facilities
•  
•  
• Passive Defense
•  
• Conducting hazard assessment by evaluating the
  area and the size of the population at risk in
  the event of the biological attack
•  
• Increasing the detection capability by
  furnishing an alarm system alerting officials
  that a biological attack is imminent. Ideally,
  detection systems are situated a sufficient
  distance upwind of the asset being produced to
  enable sufficient warning before the agent cloud
  arrives over the target downwind

15
Future Forms of Terrorism Threat of Biological
Weapons and Bio-TerrorismSeminar byAssoc. Prof.
Mustafa Kibaroglu

• Means of Protection Active Passive Defenses
  (continued)
• Increasing physical protection capability such
  as using physical barriers to protect the target
  population from exposure to a biological agent
•  
• Since the risks of illness from skin exposure to
  biological agents are minimal, respirators and
  masks are the principal personal protective gear
•  
• Medical counter-measures can negate or blunt the
  effects of some biological agents. Therefore,
  personnel can be vaccinated against some agents.
  Vaccinations are available to counteract against
  some biological agents such as anthrax, Plague,
  Q-fever, and tularemia
•  
• Medical counter-measures can also be
  administered after exposure to a biological agent
  such as applying antibiotics The effectiveness
  of medical treatment depends on the availability
  of advance knowledge of the specific biological
  agent involved.

16
Future Forms of Terrorism Threat of Biological
Weapons and Bio-TerrorismSeminar byAssoc. Prof.
Mustafa Kibaroglu

• International Efforts to Counter the Threat of
  Biological Weapons
•  
• Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC)
  signed in 1972 and entered into force in 1975
  prohibits countries from developing, producing,
  acquiring, stockpiling and retaining an entire
  class of biological and toxin weapons
•  
• The major weakness of the BTWC is that it does
  not have a verification mechanism. Therefore, it
  is not possible to verify that no such an
  activity takes place in suspect countries some of
  which are in the Middle East
•  
• Negotiations in the Conference on Disarmament
  (CD) in the United Nations Offices in Geneva
  resulted in a full-fledged and effective
  verification mechanism in the Spring of 2001,
  which was however objected by the United States
  in July the same year
•  
• Informal cooperation and collaboration among
  states, especially in the field of intelligence,
  is probable. However, there is reluctance in most
  states in sharing sensitive national intelligence
  with other states unless there exists a common
  interest or there is a strategic partnership
  between the states.