Читать книгу Prospect of Biological and Nuclear Terrorism in Central Asia and Russia - Musa Khan Jalalzai - Страница 6

Introduction

The international community demonstrated criminal negligence while the US army used Mother of Bombs-full of biological and chemical material against the civilians of a poor and ruined state in Jalalabad Province of Afghanistan. This was a shameless war crime of the CIA and Pentagon that killed innocent women and children and infected thousands by incurable diseases. No state reacted or felt the pain of the tortured civilian population. All member states of the European Union, Britain, Saudi Arabis, Pakistan, Iran, Canada, and Australia are equally responsible partners and co-conspirators for this crime against humanity. The US army used biological weapons in Afghanistan and bombed the country 59,000 times by using its military bases in Pakistan. On 04 October 2018, Defence Ministry of Russia warned that the American army was running a clandestine biological weapons lab in Georgia.

Maj. Gen. Igor Kirillov, the head of the Russian military’s radiation, chemical and biological protection troops, alleged at a briefing that the lab in Georgia was part of a network of US labs near the borders of Russia and China. Pentagon opened Lugar Centre in 2013, where different types of insects have been developing. However, Maj. Gen. Igor Kirillov warned that the spread of viral diseases in southern Russia could have been linked to the activities of the Lugar Center. He pointed to the spread of the African swine fever (ASF) from Georgia since 2007 that caused massive losses for the Russian farm sector. On 04 January 2018, Express Tribune published a statement of Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif, in his reply to the US accusation:

“You have asked what we did. A dictator surrendered on a single phone call, our country witnessed the worse bloodbath, you carried out 57,800 attacks on Afghanistan from our bases, your forces were supplied arms and explosives through our soil, thousands of our civilians and soldiers became victims of the war initiated by you. We considered your enemy as our own, we filled the Guantanamo Bay, and we served you with such an enthusiasm that we left our country with load shedding and gas shortage. We tried to please you on the cost of our economy; we provided tens of thousands of visas as a result of which the networks of Black Water spread across our country”.

Now, Pakistan is dancing to the CIA and Pentagon tangos once more by supporting, recruiting, and serving the sexual needs of the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) to turn Central Asia, Afghanistan and Russia into a new battlefield of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. Scholar and Lecturer Department of Social Sciences, Lahore Garrison University Pakistan, Dr. Yunis Khushi in his research paper (A Critical Analysis of Factors and Implications of ISIS Recruitments and Concept of Jihad-Bil-Nikah-26 June 2017) noted important aspects of the ISIS training bases, and activities of women brigade of the Daesh-including Jihad-Bil-Nikah:

“The recruitments for ISIS have been going on in Pakistan for the past more than 3 years, but the Foreign and the Interior Ministries of Pakistan have been constantly denying the presence and activities of ISIS in Pakistan. Law Enforcement agencies have very recently arrested many people from Lahore, Islamabad, Karachi and Sialkot who were associated with ISIS networks. Men have been recruited as jihadis or mujahids and women as jihadi wives to provide sexual needs of fighters who are fighting in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Many women, impressed and convinced through brainwashing with the concept of Jihad-Bil-Nikah, got divorce from their Pakistani husbands and went to marry a Mujahid of ISIS for a certain period, came back gave birth to the child of Mujahid, and remarried their former husband. Some decide to continue that marriage for rest of their lives. All of this is being done to obtain worldly wealth and later eternal life in Heaven because ISIS is paying something around RS. 50,000 to 60,000 per month to every warrior, which is a hefty amount for an unemployed youth suffering in unemployment, poverty and inflation here in Pakistan, which is ruled by the corrupt ruling elite for the past 68 years and masses only got poverty for being true Muslims and patriot Pakistanis. Most secret and law-enforcement agencies have behaved like a silent bystander to the activities of ISIS in the country. Is this an unofficial channel of providing soldiers to provide the Saudi demands for fighters to fight on behalf of Saudi armies in Yemen and Syria? A sort of high-level game is going on, on the political, foreign policy and law-enforcement levels regarding the presence of ISIS in Pakistan. The politicians, Foreign Ministry, Interior Ministry, and Law Enforcement Agencies are singing different tunes regarding the presence, recruitments and migration of jihadis or mujahids and jihadi wives from Pakistan to Syria to join the ISIS”.

There are several reasons for the relative increase of violent extremism and Takfiri Jihadism after the collapse of Soviet Union. In 2017, more than 8,000 Mujahideen from Central Asia joined the ISIS terrorist network. Violent extremism and Terrorism posed a threat to the security and integrity of nuclear, chemical, and biological facilities in Russia and Central Asia. Numerous separatist conflicts contribute to national instability. Illicit nuclear materials have been interdicted on numerous occasions in Russia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. For the last two decades, U.S. leaders have focused on the possibility of nuclear terrorism as a serious threat to the United States. In the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, those fears grew even more acute. With the establishment of the ISIS by US army, the threat of chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear (CBRN) terrorism exacerbated in Central Asia and Russia.

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. The greatest threat to the national security of Russia stems from nuclear smuggling and terror groups operating in Central Asia. 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 emphasised that attacking this region was not the highest priority. In July 2018, five Tajik men killed four foreign cyclists in a car-ramming attack, accompanied by an on-foot gun and knife assault in the Khatlon province of Tajikistan.

The investigation into the 3 April 2017 terrorist attack on the St Petersburg metro has focused on a man of Central Asian origin with possible ties to Syrian rebel groups. The attack raises concerns about the threat posed both by Daesh and extremists within Russia’s sizeable Central Asian community. Investigators identified Akhbarzhon Dzhalilov as the prime suspect in the 3 April attack on the St Petersburg metro that left 14 people dead and 49 injured. Dzhalilov is an ethnic Uzbek from the southern Kyrgyzstani city of Osh who obtained Russian citizenship in 2011. The rise of ISIS in Afghanistan poses serious security concerns for Russia, according to a September 2016 statement by Zamir Kabulov, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s director of the Second Asian Department in Afghanistan. Kabulov claimed that about 2,500 ISIS combatants are in Afghanistan and the organization is preparing to expand from Afghanistan into other Central Asian countries and Russia, giving Moscow reasons to worry. Nuclear terrorism in Central Asia and Russia has risen important questions about the US and NATO policy towards Russia that without using biological and nuclear weapons against the country, its dream of supreme power will vanish.

The current instability in the Middle East, particularly the conflict in Syria and the ongoing Sunni insurgency in Iraq, has energized the Salafi-jihadi groups and has emboldened their supporters to orchestrate large-scale casualty attacks. The likelihood of a successful bioterrorist attack is not very large, given the technical difficulties and constraints. However, even if the number of casualties is likely to be limited, the impact of a bioterrorist attack can still be high. Countering bioterrorism, from a responsive and policy-making point of view, usually focuses on measures to mitigate human casualties. With the presence of Jihadist Groups and the ISIS in Central Asia, the use of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons cannot be ruled out, the fact is that the ISIS found these weapons in Syria and Iraq. If they used these weapons, reaction of the Central Asia States and Russian would be violent, and they might attack the US and NATO installations inside Afghanistan. Radiological sources remain in Central Asia and, if stolen, could be used in unconventional attacks by terrorists. They have been less well addressed by cooperative threat-reduction efforts because they serve ongoing and important industrial and medical purposes.

The prospect of nuclear terrorism in Central Asia and might possibly in Russia, is crystal clear as the ISIS groups, and US army are making things worse. There are possibilities that terrorists can acquire nuclear material or a complete warhead to use it in Central Asia, or possibly in Russia. The risk of a complete nuclear device falling into the hands of terrorists will cause consternation in the region. Over the past several years, the prospect of a terrorist group armed with a nuclear weapon has frequently been cited as a genuine and overriding threat to the security of Central Asia and Russia.

If terrorist groups such as ISIS or Lashkar-e-Taiba determine to go nuclear, what will be the security preparations in Central Asia to intercept these groups? These and other Pakistan based groups can attempt to manufacture the fissile material needed to fuel a nuclear weapon—either highly enriched uranium or plutonium, and then use it. Moreover, there are possibilities that Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia based extremist and jihadist groups can purchase fissile material in black market or steal it from a military or civilian facility and then use that material to construct an improvised nuclear device. The US tensions with Russia receded and nuclear strategy came to seem like a relic of a bygone era. Yet today, with Russia rising again as a military power, the grim logic of nuclear statecraft is returning. In his nuclear risk analysis, Simon Saradzhyan (Russia Matters, Simon Saradzhyan, (August 06, 2019) argued that there isa possibility of nuclear war between Russia and the United States:

“Is the risk of a nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia now higher than at the height of the Cold War? Yes, it is, according to an article former U.S. Energy Secretary Ernie Moniz and former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn have penned for Foreign Affairs. “Not since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis has the risk of a U.S.-Russian confrontation involving the use of nuclear weapons been as high as it is today,” the co-chairs of the Nuclear Threat Initiative warn in their commentary published on Aug. 6, 2019. To back their claim, the two American statesmen describe an imaginary scenario in which Russian air defense systems shot down a NATO aircraft that has accidentally veered into Russian airspace during a wargame in Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave in 2020”.

On 25 March 2016, Daily Telegraph reported militants plan to attack the Brussels nuclear plant: “In the wake of claims the Brussels attackers had planned to set off a radioactive ‘dirty bomb’, Yukiya Amano, the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency said: “Terrorism is spreading and the possibility of using nuclear material cannot be excluded. The material can be found in small quantities in universities, hospitals and other facilities. “Dirty bombs will be enough to (drive) any big city in the world into panic. And the psychological, economic and political implications would be enormous,” said Mr Amano. One security expert suggested that the terrorists could have been plotting to kidnap the nuclear researcher they had been filming with a view to coercing the scientist into helping them make a ‘dirty bomb’. The Newspaper reported.

If we look at the expertise of these groups, and their multifaceted military training, on their return to the region, they might possibly target biological and chemical laboratories and nuclear installations in Central Asia and Russia. There are states they will provide weapons and training to make the region a hell. Newsweek’s Daily Beast blog provided another version of an overspill, already apparently happening in 2010. They quoted a “Taliban sub-commander in the northern Afghan province of Kunduz”: … jihadist allies from Central Asia have started heading home … encouraged by relentless American drone attacks against the fighters’ back bases in Pakistan’s tribal areas … they’re expanding their range across the unguarded northern Afghan border into Tajikistan to create new Taliban sanctuaries there, assist Islamist rebels in the region, and potentially imperil the Americans’ northern supply lines … [beginning] in late winter 2009.… In Kunduz they joined up with fighters from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU).

Nuclear trafficking in South Asia was a key concern while the nuclear black marketing networks of Pakistani generals and some mafia scientists were uncovered in Libya to Syria, Malaysia and Afghanistan. Recent media reports identified Moldovan criminal groups that attempted to smuggle radioactive materials to Daesh (also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS) in 2015. Cases of nuclear smuggling in Central Asia were made recent cases. Muhammad Wajeeh, a Research Associate at Department of Development Studies, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Abbottabad Pakistan in his research paper (Nuclear Terrorism: A Potential Threat to World’s Peace and Security-JSSA Vol II, No. 2) has reviewed a consternating threat of nuclear terrorism in South and Central Asia:

“ISIS is believed to have about 90 pounds of low-grade uranium (which was seized from Mosul University in Iraq are the invasion of the city in 2014) that can be used in the Dirty Bomb’s to create serious panic among the public. In 2015 and 2016, ISIS became the leading high-profile jihadist group in Iraq and Syria. Moreover, ISIS carried out attacks in Paris on November 13, 2015, killing 130 civilians and injuring more than 100 people. The ISIS carried out a series of three coordinated suicide. Bombings in Belgium: one at Maalbeek Metro Station, Brussels and two at Brussels Airport in Zaventem, killing about 32 civilians and injuring 300 people. During the attacks, a G4S guard working on the Belgian nuclear research center was also murdered and it le the world believing that the ISIS has a potential plot to attack the nuclear facility either to steal the radioactive material for dirty bomb or to release the radioactive material and waste into the atmosphere. These attacks also raised the issue of nuclear security over a discovery made by the Belgian authorities that the ISIS has kept an eye on the local nuclear scientists and their families. Moreover, two Belgian nuclear power plant workers at Deol having knowledge of the nuclear sites joined ISIS and could provide assistance to exploit them for terrorist purposes. On March 30, al‐Furat, the media wing of ISIS, threatened attacks on Germany and Britain on the eve of Washington Nuclear Security Summit 2016”.

In yesteryears, President Vladimir Putin seemed to be after nuclear weapons for another reason—to show that Russia was still a great power to be reckoned with. As President Putin elaborated in an interview with Oliver Stone, whether America’s motives are truly just centered on corporate welfare or not, the position the U.S. was putting him in requires him to respond to the heightened threat. Soon thereafter he claimed in his annual address to the Duma an entirely new generation of heavy MIRV (Multiple Independently Targetable Reentry Vehicle) missiles, one of which could kill every major city in Texas; nuclear-powered cruise missiles with essentially unlimited range for evading U.S. defenses; virtually undetectable nuclear torpedoes for destroying American coastal cities and major ports; and hypersonic delivery vehicles which completely skew the balance of Mutually Assured Destruction by reducing the amount of time that policymakers have to decide whether to go to nuclear war from 15 or 30 minutes to perhaps less than five.

Modern diplomacy (29 March 2020) in its short comment noted the frustration of the US army and Pentagon vis-a-vis emerging security threats and modern technologies: “The technological superiority of the United States armed forces is being challenged by new and evolving threats constantly being developed by potential adversaries. To counteract these challenges, the country’s Department of Defense (DoD) is expected to spend an estimated $481 billion between 2018 and 2024 to identify and develop new technologies for advanced weapon systems, giving rise to numerous revenue opportunities in this space”. Before this, in February 2018, BBC reported Moscow’s condemnation of US military proposals to develop new, smaller atomic bombs mainly to deter any Russian use of nuclear weapons. Russia’s Foreign Minister called the move “confrontational” and expressed “deep disappointment”. The proposals emerged from concerns that Russia might see current US nuclear weapons as too big to be used. The Russian Foreign Ministry accused the US of warmongering in its statement, issued less than 24 hours after the US proposals were published.

The recent coronavirus attacks authenticate my postulation of the intensification of bioterrorism in Europe and Asia in 2020. The blame game between Washington and China further prompted misunderstanding about the hegemonic role of the US army that it wants to mitigate the future role of nuclear weapons and missile technology in peace and war. Chinese Ambassador was summoned in Washington when Foreign Ministry in Beijing tweeted that the deadly coronavirus was seeded in Wuhan by the US military. US President Donald Trump also called Covid-19 a “Chinese” and “foreign” virus, earning condemnations not only from Beijing but also from much of the mainstream media. However, China categorically stated that the coronovirus attack was a hybrid war against its economy and industry. Moreover, initially, Iranian officials also declared that the coronavirus was a biological weapon created in US military laboratories. Some states in Europe demonstrated weakness in fighting the Coronavirus war against their population.

Italy and France have been irritated in overcoming the death rate from the disease, while the British Prime Minister become frustrated in changing his controversial approach to the pandemic spread across the country. On 22 March 2020, the Guardian newspaper reported frustration of Downing Street about the shameless statement of controversial adviser to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Dominic Mckenzie Cummings, who argued in a private meeting that the government’s strategy towards the coronavirus was “herd immunity, protect the economy and if some pensioners die”. The allegations, which were widely circulated online criticised that the government response to the Coronavirus was initially too weak, frustrated and controversial based on the notion that rather than limiting its spread, enough people could be allowed to contract it to give population-wide “herd immunity”. Dominic Mckenzie Cummings was born 25 November 1971 is a British political strategist who has been serving as Chief Adviser to Prime Minister Boris Johnson since July 2019.

Since 9/11, the threat of nuclear and biological terrorism has been at the forefront of the international security agenda. Bioterror experts have stressed the need for prevention of terrorist groups operating in Europe and the UK from gaining access to weapons of mass destruction and from perpetrating atrocious acts of biological terrorism. Recent events in Europe have raised the prospect of extremist and jihadist groups using biological, radiological and chemical attacks against civilian and military installations. The greatest threat to the national security of Europe and the UK stems from smuggling of material of dirty bomb, pathogen and smuggling of biting insects. As international media focused on the looming threat of chemical and biological terrorism in Europe, extremist and jihadist groups are seeking these weapons to inflict fatalities on civilian population.

Bioterrorism is terrorism involving the intentional release or dissemination of biological agents. These agents are bacteria, viruses, fungi, or toxins, and may be in a naturally occurring or a human-modified form, in much the same way in biological warfare. Biological agents are used by the terrorists to attain their social or political goals and are used for killing or injuring people, plants and animals. The response of Europe to the threat of future bioterrorism seems limited due to political and economic reservations of some member states. The approach to searching for biological agents at airports and shipping container entry points and promoting bio-hazard 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