At least 40 al-Qaeda killed by Black Death Plague?

[undergroundpanther]

The killer bug, also known as the plague, swept through insurgents training at a forest camp in Algeria, North Africa. It came to light when security forces found a body by a roadside.

The victim was a terrorist in AQLIM (al-Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb), the largest and most powerful al-Qaeda group outside the Middle East.

It trains Muslim fighters to kill British and US troops.

Now al-Qaeda chiefs fear the plague has been passed to other terror cells — or Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.
A security source said: “This is the deadliest weapon yet in the war against terror. Most of the terrorists do not have the basic medical supplies needed to treat the disease.

“It spreads quickly and kills within hours. This will be really worrying al-Qaeda.”
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2146286.ece

This line," This is the deadliest weapon yet in the war against terror." It bothers me.Why?

Because of this:

A Texas Tech professor lost or destroyed 30 vials of Bubonic Plague somewhere on the Lubbock campus, then lied to federal investigators about it. The professor was convicted in federal court, in part, for carrying vials of Bubonic Plague on commercial airline flights to and from Tanzania without registering them with US Customs, and sending plague vials via Federal Express without informing the carrier they were transporting bioagents.

http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2008/08/2001-anthrax-case-shows-homegrown.html


And this:

"Two factors--the threat of antibiotic-resistant plague and the possible use of plague by bioterrorists--have the public health system scrambling to come up with an effective vaccine and alternative treatments," Dr. Hinnebusch says. "Plague has been used as a bioweapon before and it could be again."
http://www.innovations-report.de/html/berichte/medizin_gesundheit/bericht-27419.html

He didn't KNOW yeah,riiight.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x234726

In this particular case, the collaborative research has been set up between a developing and a developed country, namely Tanzania and USA. This could have led to a capacity strengthening of the Tanzania team and to a better knowledge about the antibiotics against Yersinia pestis in Tanzanian individuals through the input of the US team, but in fact, it seems that the result of this collaborative research is a waste of time, of trust and a scientific malpractice etc…No scientific result will be published concerning this collaborative work.
http://www.amanet-trust.org/discuss/viewtopic.php?p=861&sid=5a7f89f8fd969049f967a993a7de87bd

How fucking convenient.40 AlQueda dead,and still we can't catch Bin Laden,but how many other people died from the way US exploits others in shady to downright evil ways that no one over here knows or cares about??

[michreject]

1. Locusts are next

followed by flies and frogs.

Maybe all those who died were 1st born.

[Raskolnik]

2. I don't understand.

If an al Queda camp/cell/whatever was playing around with a potential biological weapon, and it bit them in the ass, how is that the fault of the U.S.?

[Posteritatis]

8. Assuming, of course, that they *were* playing around with it

Plague still exists out in the wild, particularly in the developing world, nails a few thousand people a year. It's nothing close to smallpox, which is highly contagious, highly lethal, and (fortunately) eradicated.

Bubonic plague? With even vaguely modern medicine on hand, it's an inconvenience, easier to treat than the nastier staph infections going around.

[Raskolnik]

10. Absolutely correct, which makes it even more puzzling why this should be laid the feet of the U.S.

[Posteritatis]

20. It involves al-Qaeda and a fascinatingly horrible historical disease

Of course people are going to suggest or outright state that it was terrorism-related, either the ebil terrists making (easily-treated) diseases to destroy us all, or the ebil us using bioweapons on the freedom fighters. It's the perfect screaming-headlines news item, even though it's much ado about not much.

[Cirque du So-What]

3. Besides the fishwrap-worthy UK Sun

the only other paper that has run this story is the UK ToryTelegraph. I'd like to see some corroboration from a publication that's not known for publishing the rantings of fucking loons or the fantasies of modern-day European fascists.

[DainBramaged]

22. Don't you love the credibility the stories from The Sun get here

But FAUX News is poison. If everyone only realized who owned the Sun.

[malaise]

4. Biological warfare?

I wouldn't put that past the goons.

[Hekate]

5. On the plus side (if there is such a thing with the Black Death) it remains endemic...

... in parts of the world all by itself. Every so often someone in the American Southwest gets bubonic plague from fleabites -- said fleas having bitten some wild rodents that are carriers.

Strange but true.

Hopefully these AQ deaths have nothing to do with us.

Hekate

[ZombieHorde]

6. Another view of the situation.

He said authorities in the first week of January intercepted an urgent communication between the leadership of al Qaeda in the Land of the Maghreb (AQIM) and al Qaeda's leadership in the tribal region of Pakistan on the border with Afghanistan. The communication suggested that an area sealed to prevent leakage of a biological or chemical substance had been breached, according to the official.

"We don't know if this is biological or chemical," the official said.

The story was first reported by the British tabloid the Sun, which said the al Qaeda operatives died after being infected with a strain of bubonic plague, the disease that killed a third of Europe's population in the 14th century. But the intelligence official dismissed that claim.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jan/19/al-qaeda-bungles-arms-experiment/">Washington Times

Bold is mine.

[SoCalNative]

12. Except the Washington Times

is also a right-wing rag. It's a "source" they cite on FR all the time.

[ZombieHorde]

18. Do we only cite left-wing rags?

[crispini]

7. Black plague? First thing I thought: biological warfare.

Lovely. :sarcasm:

[spanone]

9. me too

[Raskolnik]

11. You know that if it *was* the result of a biological weapon, it almost certainly wasn't

the U.S. who deployed it, right?

[TZ]

13. You know that bubonic plague exists in nature right?

Fleas on rodents carry it. It actually occurs in the US from time to time but IS EASILY TREATABLE with antibiotics.

[Raskolnik]

21. Yes--my post was for the benefit of those who think that this is likely a U.S. plot

[geckosfeet]

14. Uh. Ermmm. Yeah.

At least that's what the posts on this thread are presuming.

Personally I would guess that there is a 50/50 chance that the US was involved somehow.

[Clear Blue Sky]

15. Problem is that they will learn from their mistakes.

Next time it could be us.

[Posteritatis]

19. "Note to self: don't snort the plague" (nt)

[Still Sensible]

16. I know we all hated the Bush regime, but I am

quite confident that even they would not do this. That is not to say that some rogue wouldn't... but I really don't think Bush would order it and I am confident that the regular chain of command below wouldn't have carried it out if they received such an order. It seems much more likely that something AQ was working on got away from them, or it is a natural occurence. JMHO.

[proud patriot]

17. I just hate it when when the plague gets "lost"

x(