Prospect of Biological and Nuclear Terrorism in Central Asia and Russia. Musa Khan Jalalzai
unreliable, the Kremlin insisted Russia was winning the nuclear race. “Our president has repeatedly said that Russian engineering in this sector significantly outstrips … other countries,” a spokesman said. Now fast-forward to 16 August, and another threatening event: the test-firing by North Korea of potentially nuclear-capable ballistic missiles, the sixth round of launches since July. More than two years of vanity diplomacy by Donald Trump has not convinced Pyongyang it is safe to give up its nukes – proof, if it were needed, that unilateral counter-proliferation initiatives do not work”.
A qualitative global nuclear arms race is now underway. The world’s nine nuclear-armed actors are collectively squandering hundreds of billions of dollars to maintain and improve their arsenals. The use of nuclear weapons—even on a so-called “limited” scale— creates the potential for global catastrophe. On 24 April 2019, analysts Harry Cockburn wrote a detailed note on the possibilities of nuclear war that might cause huge fatalities. However, on 22 April 2020, Russian TV reported that as Covid-19 didn’t hasn’t united the world, nuclear war has become on the card: “The struggle for international dominance was sharply intensifying even before the pandemic began, Sergey Ryabkov believes, but “unfortunately, the coronavirus couldn’t defuse this process, on the contrary, it only amplified and accelerated it......Since the outbreak of the coronavirus in December in China’s Wuhan, the highly contagious disease has spread around the globe, causing more than 175,000 deaths, grinding the world’s major economies to a halt and wreaking havoc on the financial markets”. Nuclear scientists, have a special responsibility to raise the alarm. Their voices were heard in the several appeals, most clearly in the Russell-Einstein manifesto of 1955, which called for international meetings of scientists, with clear public recommendations.
There are several extremist and terrorist groups operating in Tajikistan where they are recruiting members of local religious groups, and civilians from all walks of life to prepare them for the fight against Russia. Analyst Leonid Gusev (01 February 2020) his recent paper noted activities of extremist groups in Tajikistan:
“As in the other countries of the region, the main recruiting platform used by ISIS (a terrorist organisation banned in Russia) in Tajikistan is the Internet. There are some 3 million Internet users in Tajikistan, 80 per cent of them accessing extremist content through social media either deliberately or accidentally. During their meeting in May 2018, President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon and President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko expressed their commitment to strengthening cooperation in the fight against terrorism, extremism, drug trafficking and the illegal arms trade. In October 2019, Tajikistan hosted a joint military exercise of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) member states, “Indestructible Brotherhood 2019.” One of the components of that exercise, according to Commander of the Central Military District of the Russian Federation, Colonel-General Alexander Lapin, consisted of antiterrorist operations. Tajikistan is a tension hotspot in Central Asia in terms of religious extremism and terrorism. A particular source of danger is neighbouring Afghanistan, where about 60 per cent of the lands along the frontier are engulfed in clashes between government forces and the Taliban and other radical Islamist groups. At the same time, there is almost no security along the Afghan-Tajik border, including the issue of drug trafficking. The local Tajik forces supporting border guards are scant, especially since the Kulob Regiment was relocated from the 201st Russian military base to Dushanbe. Yet the government has so far managed to control the situation.”1
Recent events in Tajikistan and Russia have raised the prospect of extremist and jihadist groups using biological, radiological and chemical attacks against military installations and critical national infrastructure in both states. Russia is vulnerable to such attacks by these terrorist groups who received military training from the US army in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The greatest threat to the national security of Russia stems from the business of nuclear smuggling of the US sponsored terror groups operating in Central Asia. Increasingly sophisticated chemical and biological weapons are accessible to these organisations and the ISIS and their allies, which is a matter of great concern.
These groups can use more sophisticated conventional weapons as well as chemical and biological agents against Russia in the near future as the US Special Force is already in control of Pakistan’s nuclear and biological weapons. They can disperse chemical, biological and radiological material as well as industrial agents via water or land to target schools, colleges, civilian and military personnel. They were trained by US and NATO forces, and tested these weapons on innocent schools children in different provinces of Afghanistan. These groups also received training of dangerous weapons in different military units of Pakistan army.
As international media focuses on the looming threat of chemical and biological terrorism in Central Asia and Russia, the ISIS is seeking access to nuclear weapons to use it against Russia. The crisis is going to get worse as the exponential network of ISIS and its popularity in Afghanistan caused deep security challenges for Russian Federation. This group could use chemical and biological weapons once it strengthens its bases in Central Asia and Russia. The possibility of a nuclear technology transfer by irresponsible states like Pakistan and Iran to the ISIS command is still reverberating in international press. In an interview with a local television channel, Dr Abdul Qadir Khan categorically said that nuclear smuggling activities did take place from 1992 to 1998 while both Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto were in power.
Recent debates in the print and electronic media about the possible use of Chlorine Bombs or biological weapons in Central Asia and Russia have caused deep concerns in government and military circles that the radicalised jihadists returning from Syria and Iraq may use these weapons with the cooperation of local supporters and some states. Yet, experts have warned that the acquisition of nuclear weapons by the Islamic State (ISIS) poses a greater threat to the national security of regional states. The gravest danger arises from the access of extremist and terror groups to the state-owned nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. The growing use of Chlorine Bombs is a matter of great concern. The first such incident occurred when the ISIS commanders gained access to the Iraqi nuclear weapons site in Mosul University.
However, recent cases of nuclear proliferation and attacks on nuclear installations across the globe have further exacerbated the concern about the threat of nuclear attacks in Caucasus regions, Russia and Tajikistan. The threat of chemical and biological jihad against Russia has raised serious questions about the security of its nuclear and biological weapons. Experts have warned that the Central Asia, Pakistan and Afghanistan based jihadists, and the Taliban pose a great security threat. Improvised explosive devices and chemical and biological weapons are easily available in Asian and European markets and can be transported to Moscow through human traffickers. The influx of trained terrorists and extremist groups from several Asian, African and European states has raised concerns that those who sought asylum through fake documents in Russia could pose a threat to the country. In a press conference in Australia, President Obama declared that if his government discovered that ISIS had come to possess a nuclear weapon, he would get it out of their hands. The fear of such attacks still exists in Russia because thousands of European nationals joined the ISIS’s military campaign in Syria and Iraq.
In 2013, chemical attacks in the outskirts of Damascus posed a direct threat to all Arab states, and forced UN Security Council to adopt a resolution on chemical weapons in Syria. The international operation of transporting the components of these weapons out of Syria was completed in the first half of 2014. In 2015, the ISIS tried to gain access to these weapons and used chlorine bombs for terrorist activities in Iraq and Syria. On 06 January, 2015, cases of ISIS using chemical weapons in Iraq and Syria emerged.2 These chemical attacks illustrated that ISIS and the Syrian opposition chose to use chemical weapons preferentially in Iraq and Syria. In Russia and Central Asia, the ISIS is seeking these weapons to use them against the armed forces of the region. In one of its issues magazine (Dabiq), claimed that Islamic State sought to buy nuclear weapons from Pakistan but experts viewed this claim as baseless.
Before the rise of ISIS, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) was the main Central Asian extremist organization in the field. Its base of operations is in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Central Asian fighters linked to ISIS headquarters in Syria also participated in acts of terrorism in other countries. The ISIS has previously restrained from getting involved in attacks in Central Asia as the group’s leadership