Prospect of Biological and Nuclear Terrorism in Central Asia and Russia. Musa Khan Jalalzai
awareness raised several important questions. Biological terrorism can be loosely categorised based on the agent used. The virus threat including smallpox, influenza, dengue fever, yellow fever, Rift Valley fever, and haemorrhagic fevers like Lassa, Ebola, and Marburg. Smallpox spreads directly from person to person. The third category of bio-threat is ‘bacteria’, which includes anthrax, plague, and cholera. There are numerous reports on the genetically development of viruses by some states to use it and achieve their political and economic goal.
One of these reports on insect war is the investigative report of Bulgarian investigative journalist and Middle East correspondent Dilyana Gaytandzhieva (12 September 2018), who published a series of reports. Her current work focuses on war crimes and illicit arms exports to war zones around the world. The Alternative World Website and Zodlike Productions, a news forum has published her fresh analysis of future insect war. She has painted a consternating picture of US insect war in her investigative report, and warns that the prospect of biological terrorism is consternating:
“Pentagon’s scientists have been deployed in 25 countries and given diplomatic immunity to research deadly viruses, bacteria and toxins at US military offshore biolaboratories under a $2.1 billion DoD program. The US Embassy to Tbilisi transports frozen human blood and pathogens as diplomatic cargo for a secret US military program. Internal documents, implicating US diplomats in the transportation of and experimenting on pathogens under diplomatic cover were leaked to me by Georgian insiders. According to these documents, Pentagon scientists have been deployed to the Republic of Georgia and have been given diplomatic immunity to research deadly diseases and biting insects at the Lugar Center–the Pentagon biolaboratory in Georgia’s capital Tbilisi. In 2014, The Lugar Center was equipped with an insect facility and launched a project on Sand Flies in Georgia and the Caucasus. In 2014-2015 sand fly species were collected under another project “Surveillance Work on Acute Febrile Illness” and all (female) sand flies were tested to determine their infectivity rate. A third project, also including sand flies collection, studied the characteristics of their salivary glands. Sand flies carry dangerous parasites in their saliva which they can transmit to humans through a bite”.
With the establishment of Islamic State ISIS in Syria and Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and its secret networks in Europe, the international community has now focused on the proliferation and smuggling of chemical and biological weapons in the region. Recent debate in Europe-based think tanks suggests that, as the group retrieved nuclear and biological material from the Mosul University in Iraq, it can possibly make Nuclear Explosive Devices (NED) with less than eight kilogrammes plutonium. The debate about bioterrorism and bio-defence is not entirely new in the military circles of Europe; the involvement of ISIS in using biological weapons against the Kurdish army in Kobane is a warning for the UK and European Union member states to deeply concentrate on the proliferation of these weapons in the region.
The Islamic terrorist State (ISIS) has been applying different strategies to establish a strong network in the Caucasus region. It remains active in the Caucasus region, releasing a stream of sophisticated propaganda. President Vladimir V. Putin is a man of strong nerves whose government has been tackling radicalization, extremism and insurgency with professional security measures. In Mat 2000, since the end of the Second Chechen War, peace and stability came to the region while in Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan Washington’s agenda was crushed and Russian army succeeded in eliminating terrorist infrastructure. Radicaliata in Chechnya were held responsible for a number of terrorist attacks throughout Russia. Currently, Chechnya is under Ramzan Kadyrov who is a popular leader among the Muslims.
Russian strategy towards Islamist extremism and its counter-radicalization policies are effective in countering radicalization and terrorism in Central Asia and Caucasus region. More than 3500 Caucasus Muslims have joined ISIS in Syria, but Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) designed a series of soft and punitive measures to effectively respond to their action. Dr. Ekaterina Sokirianskaia (January 2019) in her research paper has reviewed radicalization and extremism in North Caucasus region:
“Armed conflict in the North Caucasus, which has seen ebbs and flows of violence since the mid-90s, has now significantly quieted. The armed insurgency first emerged as the militant wing of a post-Soviet separatist movement in Chechnya, it gradually transformed into a regional jihadist project that was consolidated by Imarat Kavkaz (IK) in 2007 and in June 2015 experienced its third reincarnation. In the third wave, the remaining militant groups overwhelmingly swore allegiance to the socalled Islamic State of Iraq and Levent (ISIL or ISIS)1 and by 2016, roughly 3,000 radicals from the region joined jihadists in Syria and Iraq, precipitating a steady decrease in the number of victims and violent incidents in the North Caucasus.”.
Debate among the European Union intelligence experts normally starts with the assumption that without a professional intelligence analysis on law enforcement level, prevention of bioterrorism is impossible. In the wake of the terrorist attacks in Brussels, security experts raised the question of intelligence-sharing failure, which caused huge infrastructural destruction and the killings of innocent civilians. Terrorists killed more than 34 innocent people and injured over 200 in Brussels. The failure of French and Brussels intelligence agencies to tackle the menace of extremism and the exponentially growing networks of the Islamic State (ISIS) prompted a deep distrust between the law enforcement agencies and civil society of the two states.
The French and Belgium intelligence infrastructure also suffered from a lack of check and balance. This huge intelligence gap has badly affected the intelligence cooperation with other EU member states. The Belgian Foreign Minister warned that more intelligence on home-growing extremism was a must after the EU secret agencies came under heavy criticism immediately after they failed to share intelligence with France about the Paris attackers. French Interior Minister complained that no information about possible attacks was provided by EU secret agencies. This significant increase in biological agents has been attributed to a rise in terrorist organizations that intentionally seek to inflict mass casualties and utilize intimidation tactics, criminal groups with fringe radical political, religious, or ecological reasons that want to raise awareness of a specific cause, or even governments that in the past have deployed biological agents to intimidate minorities or specific parts of the population either within or outside their territories.
Finally, global affairs analyst (Kathmandu, Nepal, Asia Times, 09 April 2020) Mr. Sisir Devkota has appropriately said: “At present, the new global order is a disorder. A biological intervention is largely to blame for the imbalance. Predictively, new forms of stakeholders will take birth in the coming time. Stringent border control over biohazards might become the new norm while localization in terms of work with the help of technology is proving to be highly useful. The world will greatly anticipate if not witness frequent seismic shocks and consequent precautionary actions against other possible pandemics in the future. The new order is still taking shape but will undoubtedly face inspiring arbitrations”.
Musa Khan Jalalzai
London
May 2020
The Threat of Nuclear Jihad in Central Asiaand Russia
For more than two decades, the threat of nuclear and biological terrorism in Central Asia and Russia has been at the forefront of the international security agenda. Nuclear experts have often warned that terrorists and extremist organisations operating in Central Asia can anytime use the dirty bomb and nuclear explosive. These groups must be prevented from gaining access to weapons of mass-destruction and from perpetrating atrocious acts of bioterrorism. Russia and some Central Asian States have applied professional measures to protect their nuclear weapons sites, but nuclear proliferation still poses a grave threat to the national security of all states. Military experts and policymakers have also expressed deep concerns that if the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Chechen extremist groups, Katibat Imam Bukhari and other groups operating in the region gain access to nuclear explosives, it might cause huge destruction and fatalities.
The threat of nuclear terrorism has