The CB Terrorism Threat, Issues and

Recommendations

David Trudil

USA

1

Counter Terrorism and CBRNE Protection

4 – 7 March 2014

Manila, Philippines

“…warfare seeks to conquer territories

and capture cities;

terrorism seeks to hurt a few people and

to scare a lot of people in order to make

a point” NYTimes, 1/6/2000

“Putting the horror in the minds of the

audience, and not necessarily on the screen”

3

WMD Installation Preparedness

Version 1 - 07/04

Increase of WMD Incidents

Since 1970

Get Pat Smoak’s Chart

00959085

November 1995 - Cesium

June 1996 - Uranium

February 1997

Chlorine

14 Injured,

500 Evacuated

April 1997 U235

1985

Cyanide

March 1998 - Cesium-137

Oct - Nov 2001 Anthrax

5 Dead

April 1990

Botulinum Toxin

June 1994 Sarin

7 Dead, 200 Injured

80

1984

Botulinum

1984

Salmonella

751 Injured

March 1995 Sarin

13 Dead, 5500 Affected

December 1995 Ricin

March 1995 Ricin

April 1995 Sarin

April-June 1995

Cyanide, Phosgene

May 1995 Plague

1992 Cyanide

September 2001

Attack on America

2003 Ricin

05

Jan 2004 Ricin

Feb 2004 Ricin

NHDetect

USA

Sept 2006 Hoax

2010 Hoax Sing

2011 Ricin

2012 Ricin & Anthrax

2013 Ricin & Hoax

Threat Natural or Man-Made

4 S. Suis China

MERS in Saudi Arabia

Infectious Disease & More

5

MERS

The rapid spread of SARS 2003

• Started at the Metropole Hotel in

Hong Kong & Guangdong province

• Toronto, Hanoi, Singapore, Taiwan

• The WHO had estimated the

worldwide cost of the SARS outbreak

to be $30 billion

• Within 3 months more than 7000

probable cases, with 623 deaths,

reported from 28 countries

Source: http://www.who.int/features/2003/07/en

Middle Eastern Virus More Widespread

Than Thought Science 28 February 2014

“MERS has sickened 183 people and killed 80, most of them

in Saudi Arabia … They found that a large percentage of

camels in the Middle East have antibodies against MERS in

their blood”

… BATS have been implicated in the transmission to camels

and thus there may be other reservoirs of the virus …

“The more human cases there are, the higher the risk that the

virus will one day learn how to become easily transmissible

between people, which could set off a pandemic”

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Be prepared for all threats

2013 in Review

MDR-TB

MRSA

H7N9 Flu

Salmonella

MERS

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U.S. launches new global initiative to

prevent infectious disease threats February 12, 2014

“to prevent, detect and respond to infectious-disease threats where they start”

“There is a greater risk than ever from new infectious diseases, drug-resistant

infections and potential bioterrorism organisms …

… U.S. government agencies operate many programs related to infectious diseases. But

the new effort is the most-comprehensive so far”

Headed by HHS and working with DOD and DHS,…”The new initiative is intended to

bolster security at infectious-disease laboratories, strengthen immunization programs

and set up emergency-response centers that can react to outbreaks within two hours”

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US Foreign Policy Actions re Biothreat

"No foreign invasion from hostile fleets, could possibly work such widespread violence to the general welfare or more tremendously disturb our domestic tranquillity than foreign invasions from pestilence."

Joseph Holt, director of Louisiana's board of health, expressed his militaristic view of disease control in a publication named "The Pestilential Foreign Invasion.”

On occasion, a disease outbreak has even provided a pretext for U.S. military action. After a yellow fever outbreak in 1897, hawks of that day cited the disease as a reason to invade Cuba. The Spanish-American War was sold in part as a way to wipe out the epidemic at its source.

In the early 1900s, disease control continued to be an essential part of our military operations, notably in the Panama Canal and the Philippines.

History Of Bio Warfare

• Medieval Time

Scythian archers dipped arrow heads in manure and rotting corpses to increase the deadliness of weapons

• 1346 Crimean peninsula, Black Sea and Italy

-catapults to hurl the plague-infested bodies

• 1518 Latin America smallpox by Spanish

• 1710 war between Russia and Sweden

Russian troops used the cadavers of plague victims

• 1767 English general, Sir Jeffery Amherst

blankets infected with smallpox to Indians who are helping the French defend Fort Carillon.

• 1930s & 1940s Japan

Fleas infected with plague in China and Manchuria

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Why Would Terrorists Use WMD?

• WMD Materials are relatively

accessible

• Requires only small quantities

• Difficult to recognize

• Easily spread over large areas

• Strong psychological impact

• Overwhelms resources

WMD Installation Preparedness

Version 1 - 07/04

NHDetec

nn

t

USA

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Crude (Bio) weapons could be developed with

approximately $10,000 worth of equipment. A

laboratory sufficient to grow and harvest the

bacteria and to dry down the material to powdered

form could fit into the average sized household

basement. (testimony US Congress)

A report from the Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention, entitled The Economic Impact of a

Bioterrorist Attack, estimated the costs of dealing with

an anthrax incident at a minimum of US$26 billion

per 100,000 people.

Threats “Agents”

First Tier: Agents

Anthrax

Brucella

Ebola-Marburg

Encephalitis virus

Glanders

Plague

Q Fever

Smallpox

Tularemia

Typhus

Second Tier: Agents

Cholera

CCHF

Cryptosporidium

Dengue Fever

Escherichia coli

Hantaan

Influenza

RFV

Salmonella

Shigella

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Category A Agents

• Pose a threat to national security because they:

• can be easily disseminated or transmitted person-to-

person

• cause high mortality with potential for major public

health impact

• might cause public panic and social disruption

• require special action for public health preparedness

Bacteria - Anthrax

Anthrax

Incubation period 1 to 6 days

Protection Standard

Precautions

Contagious NO

Signs and Symptoms

Chills, fever, nausea, swollen lymph nodes

,

Treatment Antibiotics and vaccines

Spore will remain dormant for decades

Why terrorists would choose to employ

anthrax as a bioterrorism agent

• Natural occurring disease– spores found in nature

• Bacteria are easy to grow.

• Anthrax spores survive for decades and are well

suited for aerosol delivery in attack

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160 metric tons of a

chemical agent

6.5 kilograms of

Anthrax = =

One megaton

nuclear device

Types of Anthrax Disease • Cutaneous anthrax

– Infection caused by skin contact with live infected animals, or their hide, hair or bone

– 20% mortality rate if not treated

• Gastrointestinal anthrax

– Infection caused by eating undercooked or raw infected meat

– 25-60% mortality rate

• Inhalational anthrax

– Infection caused by breathing in airborne spores

– ~90% mortality rate without treatment

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Image courtesy of: Dr P.S. Brachman, Public

Health Image Library CDC, Atlanta, Ga.

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ANTHRAX History

1500 BC Egypt (70-19BC Virgil)

5th and 6th biblical plagues as well as the "burning plague" described in

Homer's Iliad as anthrax. Virgil (70-19 BC) provided one of the earliest and

most detailed descriptions of an anthrax epidemic in his Georgics.

600 BC – Middle Ages & beyond- Military use

Polluting wells and other sources of water of the opposing army was a common

strategy that continued to be used through the many wars.

1700’s – 1800’s

Anthrax was a widespread disease throughout Europe. In 1769 Jean

Fournier classified the disease as anthrax or charbon malin,… black lesions

characteristic of cutaneous anthrax.. In 1876, Robert Koch, a Prussian physician,

isolated the anthrax bacillus and recorded that the bacillus could form spores

which remained viable for long periods of time in hostile environments. John

Bell linked anthrax with "woolsorter disease" and developed a procedure to

disinfect wool.

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During World War I, German agents were sent to five neutral countries (Romania, Spain,

Norway, the United States and Argentina) with instructions to infect animal shipments

sent to the Allies. Targeted animals included sheep, cattle, horses, mules, and, in Norway,

reindeer. Animals were infected either by having anthrax injected directly into their blood

or by being fed sugar laced with anthrax.

In the inter-war period, attention shifted to human anthrax the United States,

experimented with anthrax during the 1930s and 1940s. In the late 1930s, the Japanese

Imperial Army performed covert experiments on anthrax and began deploying

biological weapons in Manchuria. Hitler had forbidden biological weapons research;

however, the Nazis did conduct anthrax and biological weapons research at a small secret

facility in Poland.

Japan conducted biological weapons research from approximately 1932 until the end of

World War II. The program was under the direction of Shiro Ishii (1932–1942) and

Kitano Misaji (1942–1945). Several military units existed for research and development of

biological warfare. The center of the Japanese biowarfare program was known as “Unit

731” and was located in Manchuria near the town of Pingfan (1). The Japanese program

consisted of more than 150 buildings in Pingfan, 5 satellite camps, and a staff of more

than 3000 scientists. More than 10,000 prisoners died as a result of experiments.

Anthrax and plague where among the BW agents developed.

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South Africa experimented with anthrax as a possible biological weapons agent

through Project Coast under the direction of Colonel Wouter Basson 1981-1994

In the 1980s, Iraq bought anthrax from the American Type Culture Collection

(Maryland). Iraq's biological weapons program produced 8,500 liters of anthrax.

In December 1990, Iraq had stockpiled 50 R400 bombs and 10 Ah-Hussein

SCUDS.

April 1979, an anthrax outbreak due to BW leak in the Soviet city of Sverdlovsk

(now Yekaterinburg). Between 66 and 105 people died. In 1995, the Soviet program was

still in existence and employed 25,000 to 30,000 people

Following World War II, the Americans and British continued to

research anthrax …the American program, which started in 1942, was

centered at Fort Detrick, Maryland.

During World War II, American, British and Canadian laboratories began

developing anthrax biological weapons. By 1944, the Allies had developed thousands of

anthrax bombs. During the war, the British, under the direction of Sir Paul Fildes who

ran Britain's Porton Down facilities, made millions of linseed cakes with anthrax

bacteria spores for potential use against German livestock. The British tested

weaponized anthrax on Gruinard Island near Scotland to determine the best method

of dispersal for the biological agent. An anthrax outbreak among sheep on the coast of

Scotland demonstrated anthrax weapons were hard to contain even in experimental sites.

Project 112 Project 112 tests are known to have involved the following agents and

simulants: Francisella tularensis, Serratia marcescens, Escherichia coli,

Bacillus globii, staphylococcal enterotoxin Type B, Puccinia graminis var.

tritici (stem rust of wheat).

Agents and simulants were usually dispensed as aerosols using spraying

devices or bomblets.

In May 1965, tests using the anthrax simulant Bacillus globigii were

performed in the Washington D.C. area by covert agents. One test was

conducted at the Greyhound bus terminal and the other at the north terminal of

the National Airport. In these tests the bacteria were released from spray

generators hidden in specially built briefcases.

Between 7 and 10 June 1966, conducted a series of tests in the New York City

Subway system by dropping light bulbs filled with Bacillus subtilis var.

niger

Local police and transit authorities were not informed of these tests

The 1966 New York Subway Release

• Bacillus subtilis

• Finely Divided Powder

• Delivery System:

• Breaking Device

• (Light Bulb)

• 50 grams

• (1x1014 spores)

• Contamination Extent:

• 15th Street to 58th Street

• 2 Km of Linear Track

Bioterrorism before Sarin

• From the summer of 1993, Aum launched several significant operations using biological and chemical agents.

From June through around August 1993, Aum

dispersed anthrax over 8 times from the top of its Tokyo headquarters in the Kameido neighborhood and other sites.

VX gas and sarin: Produced consistent with the manner described in the Russian CW manuals. Original idea was to to disperse sarin over major cities in Japan and the

United States from the air.

On June 27, 1994, Matsumoto sarin incident: 7 people killed.

On March 20, 1995 Tokyo Subway incident: 13 people killed 26

Spraying of Anthrax

27 K. Furukawa,

Anthrax Letters 2001

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WMD Installation Preparedness

Version 1 - 07/04

8 cases in

New York

2 cases in

Florida

6 cases in

New Jersey

5 cases in

Washington, DC

1 case in

Connecticut

Bioterrorism-Related AnthraxNHDete

ct

USA

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Oxford, Connecticut: Ottilie Lundgren, a retired 94-

year-old woman, died of inhalation anthrax on 21

Nov. 2001. Investigation eventually indicated that she

was exposed through cross-contamination of mail.

One of the anthrax letters mailed to Congress passed

through a postal sorting machine 20 seconds before a

letter addressed to a location 6 km from Lundgren's

residence. This letter was presumably the letter

mailed 9 Oct. to Senator Leahy which was misdirected

and was discovered 16 Nov. in isolated mail. The local

post office handling Lundgren's mail was found

contaminated by anthrax.

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Distribution of Anthrax cases

Georgia,

January-July, 2003-2012 +120 Cases

Philippines and Anthrax

“Anthrax suspected in death of 2 in Cagayan…This

incident is not new in the area considering that the

same kind of bacteria has infected several residents of

the same town last year,

GMANews.TV February 28, 2010

“Philippines reports 23 cases of anthrax infection last

week of December .. northern province of Abra”

BioPrepWatch January 30, 2013

Ideal Medical Response to Anthrax

attack

Suspected white powder

reported to police

Emergency response team deployed, personnel on full protective

gear and vaccinated against anthrax infection

Quick on site detection test to confirm if the suspected powder is due to

anthrax, sample sent for laboratory confirmation and further DNA analysis

Immediate contact tracing to find out who has been in contact with the white powder to

start antibiotics immediately and possibly vaccination as post exposure prophylaxis*

* In US, anthrax vaccination can be used as post exposure prophylaxis under

Emergency authorization

Single most dangerous infectious disease

Highly contagious

Difficult to detect (fever, universal rash)

No proven treatment

High mortality rates (>30%)

Smallpox - characteristics

Low herd immunity

Source: The world health report 2007, WHO and U.S. Center of Disease Control

Smallpox • is believed to have originated over 3,000 years

ago in India or Egypt

• survivors were marked with deep pitted scars

• in 1950s app. 50 million cases occurred in the

world each year, even 150 years after

introduction of vaccination

• In the 20th century alone, at least 300 million

people died from smallpox.

The 2001 US smallpox

exercise “Dark Winter”

Concluded that 2 months after a smallpox

outbreak in the USA the nation might

have 3 million infected smallpox victims,

of which 1 million will die

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Press clippings

Unaccounted lab samples

State programmes

Misuse

Mutation

Synthesis

“As DNA synthesis technology continues to

advance at a rapid

pace, it will soon become feasible to

synthesize nearly any virus whose

DNA sequence has been decoded—such as the

smallpox virus”

World At Risk: The Report of the Commission on the Prevention of

WMD Proliferation and Terrorism, 2008

“The synthesis of full-length Variola virus genomes and the creation of live orthopox

viruses is now technically feasible”

WHO Advisory Committee on Variola Virus Research November 2009

International focus on synthesis

Creation of Extremely Virulent Mousepox Virus

Shigeru Morikawa

NIID Tokyo, Japan

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Disease spread to new areas

Increasing occurrence of

Human Monkeypox

3 4

13

12

8

1

48 cases

1 1

1

3

1

4

12

5

35

21 1

5 1

120

4

37

33

61

338 cases

14

23

20

22

120

1163

123

1,705 cases

220

1970-1980

1996-2002

USA, 2003

Challenges of the Freedom of Expression…

• A “mad science textbook” about toxin, drug, and weapons, sold in July 2007 in Japan.

• It explains about:

• How to breed dangerous bugs, such as vespa mandarinia;

• How to extract toxic components from plants, such as cyanotoxin, anatoxin, saxitoxin, microcystin;

• How to cultivate germs and virus, including influenza virus;

• Basic concept of how to weaponize anthrax;

• How to extract tetrodotoxin from a blow-fish, etc.

Katsui Furukawa,

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The Gulf War (2 August 1990 – 28 February 1991), code-named

Operation Desert Storm (17 January 1991 – 28 February 1991)

By January 1991, a team of 100

scientists and support staff had filled

157 bombs and 16 missile warheads

with botulin toxin, and 50 bombs and

five missile warheads with anthrax.

Dr. Rihab Rashida Taha – Dr Germ

In August 1990, after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait,

Taha's team was ordered to set up a program to

weaponise the biological agents

Al Qaeda Bioterrorism Program?

• Al Qaeda Anthrax Program disrupted in October

2001 with US-led coalition intervention in

Afghanistan,

• Al Qaeda was forced to abandon its anthrax lab in

Kandahar in Oct. 2001

• Al Qaeda planned to relocate the Anthrax

program to Bogor, Indonesia

*Rajaratnam School of International Studies, NTU, Singapore

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Terrorist Links

“Representatives of the Moro National

Liberation Front in the Philippines, having close

links to Al Qaida may have tried to obtain

anthrax from an Indonesian group. Plague and

Anthrax viruses may have also been bought from

arms dealers in Kazakhstan” (www.pircenter.org)

Al-Qaeda in Syria & Beyond

“According to a report published by the Henry Jackson Society, a

British think tank, in October 2013, fighters from the al-Qaeda-

affiliated al-Nusrah Front have looted facilities in Syria’s

biotechnology infrastructure, most notably biopharmaceutical

laboratories”

“evidence of BW development can be traced to the deaths of

some 40 terrorists from plague at an Al-Qaeda in the Islamic

Maghreb (AQIM) training camp in Tizi Ouzou, Algeria, in

January 2009”

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Threats are real Today!

LIGNET, the global intelligence and forecasting service… reports al-Qaeda to

engage in a "spectacular" terrorist attack on the U.S. or Western allies …

including those involving biological and chemical weapons - February 18, 2012

Air New Zealand plane quarantined in Auckland after 73 passengers display

flu-like symptoms - February 12, 2012

Georgia militia members arrested, accused of plotting ricin attack

Los Angeles Times November 1, 2011 |

Alarm as Dutch lab creates highly contagious killer flu

December 20, 2011, The Independent

Woman professor mailed anthrax parcel to Pak PM's office

Press Trust Of India, Islamabad, February 01, 2012

Syrian CB weapons a concern in Middle East 2012-2013

Three US lawmakers sent threatening letters –

AFP, Thursday 23 February 2012

Several US lawmakers received

threatening letters containing a harmless

white powder, but the sender warned

more missives including a "harmful

material" could follow, a Senate official

said.

FBI confirms letters to

Obama, others contained ricin By Ed Payne. Matt Smith and Carol Cratty, CNN

April 19, 2013

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Anthrax threat hits French Embassy The Jakarta Post | Jakarta | Wed, April 25 2012, 7:48 AM

JAKARTA: The police said on Tuesday that two staff members of

the French embassy in Jakarta were quarantined at Sulianti

Saroso Hospital for Infectious Diseases in North Jakarta after

the embassy received an envelope reportedly filled with the

Anthrax virus on Monday.

The French Embassy in Jakarta reportedly

received the envelope, with the word “Antrac”

written on it, around 7:30 p.m. on Monday.

Rikwanto said that the envelope contained powder.

Anatomy of a Bioterrorist Attack

Preparation

3-5 years

Execution 1 day

Diagnosed case 3 days

First Death

Multiple deaths

Terrorism takes much

Time and planning

Lignet: The Forgotten WMD: Syria’s

Biological Weapons February 12, 2014

“Experts warn that government labs in Syria have worked

for decades to develop biological weapons, possibly including

a genetically modified smallpox strain from North Korea …

U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper warned

(US) Congress last month that Syria may already have the

capability to produce lethal biological warfare agents .. Syria

is even believed to have retained strains of smallpox from its

last natural outbreak in 1972”

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Islamist Syrian rebels train foreign fighters

for terrorist attacks in home country Homeland Security Newswire February 4, 2014

“The numbers of …Islamists who have traveled to Syria to

join the anti-regime rebels far exceed those of … Islamists

who have traveled to other conflicts, including the wars in

Afghanistan and Iraq. This is especially worrisome since Al-

Qaeda-affiliated groups in Syria are gaining ground in their

campaign to recruit foreign fighters to launch terrorist

attacks when they return home”

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Keys

• Preparation – Vaccinations, Equipment, Training

• Planning – coordinated between agencies

• Practice – determine areas of weakness

• Coordinate – coordination key

• Communication – include civilians

• Keep an OPEN mind, think outside the box

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“Addressing these unique challenges

requires a comprehensive approach that

recognizes the importance of reducing

threats from outbreaks of infectious disease

whether natural, accidental, or deliberate in

nature.”

Awareness, Preparation & Practice

U.S. Biological threats Report

National Security Council

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Most Common Terrorist

Coordinate with all … Knowledge &

Information!

OFFICE OF THE WHO REPRESENTATIVE IN BEIJING 32

EventEvent and the mediaand the media

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Thank You