12 December 2001. Thanks to PL.
This is being syndicated in the Jewish press starting on Friday. A companion piece will be in the Baltimore Sun on Thursday. Steve Bryen
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By Stephen Bryen
Dr. Stephen Bryen headed the US Defense Technology Security Administration from 1981 until 1988 and serves on the Board of Advisors of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs.
When Palestinian suicide bombers attacked Zion Square in Jerusalem on December 1st, there were three surprises to the horror they caused. The first was a new, much stronger type of explosive that probably came from Eastern Europe or Russia. The second was the timing of a second bomb that was intended to kill rescue workers. And the third was that the bombs contained rat poison, meaning that the attack added a new dimension to Palestinian terrorism -- biological warfare.
Rat poison is an especially nasty bio-terror weapon. Most rat poisons are made up of chemicals called anti-coagulants with trade names like warfarin, fumarin, diphacinone and bromadiolone. Some also contain poisons such as strychnine. All work more or less the same way. A small mammal eats the poison and soon gets sick and dies from internal hemorrhaging. This happens because a mammalian needs to constantly manufacture coagulants to manage internal body functions. When the coagulant is blocked, uncontrolled internal bleeding occurs.
The Palestinian terrorists clearly understood why they packed their bombs with rat poison. These bombs are made up of an explosive charge and are packed with nails and metal and glass shards and bits of steel wire. These materials are designed to kill or maim the victims of the bomb, spreading destruction over a wide area. If the nails, metal and glass are coated with rat poison, then anyone wounded by them would be more likely to die from hemorrhaging. Interior Minister Uzi Landau noted that in the December 1st attack the explosion itself consumed much of the rat poison. Had the rat poison worked, the bombers might have killed more than a hundred people on December 1st.
The use of bio-terror weapons is being pursued by Palestinian terrorists and by Al Quaeda too. In Afghanistan U.S. Special Forces have discovered many germ warfare laboratories. They have found anthrax powder and a poison called ricin. Ricin, which is made from castor beans, is much more deadly than rat poison.
Ricin is known to have been a favorite of the old-KGB and other former Warsaw pact intelligence services. It was used in the murder of Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov by the Bulgarian secret service in November, 1978. Ricin can be put into an aerosol or into a bomb. Ricin, unlike rat poison, is more stable in intense heat. While rat poison kills by making it impossible for the blood to clot, ricin works in a different way in the body but with lethal results. Not only Al Quaeda, but also Iraq is producing ricin and may have given it to the Palestinians. It is not surprising, given the rising threat, that in every terror attack in Israel HAZMAT teams equipped with gas masks and protective suits are part of the rescue effort.
We also know that radioactive materials can be combined with conventional explosives and terrorists know how to use such weapons. The first example of this was in a Moscow Park in November 1995 where Chechen terrorists planted a radiological weapon. Luckily it was found and disarmed. Chechen terrorists are among the so-called foreign fighters helping Al Quaeda. Al Quaeda also has gotten help from Pakistani nuclear scientists, from Iraq, and from smugglers who have transported Cobalt 60, Cesium 137 and Strontium 90 to Pakistan and on into Afghanistan. Such “dirty” bombs can unleash clouds of radioactive dust, causing severe and generally fatal cases of radioactive poisoning in the victims.
Just as Israel, which faces Palestinian terrorism supported by states such as Iran, Iraq and Syria, the United States faces terrorism from Islamic groups. While the FBI has tended to think the recent anthrax attacks are from domestic American sources, it is just as likely, given the Al Quaeda revelations, that they came from Bin Laden and his crowd, maybe with the help of Iraq or unemployed Russian scientists.
Combating bioterrorism and radiological weapons by defensive measures alone won’t work. There is no known way to have one hundred percent security against such attacks. Because the profile of the attacks has now changed to bioterrorism and nuclear terrorism, the only way to stop terror attacks is to destroy the terrorists and their supporters. President Bush, more than any world leader, grasps this vital point.