Forbes: Experts warn of ‘Ebola suicide bombers’

ISIS may already be thinking of using Ebola as a low-tech weapon of bio-terror, says a national security expert, who notes that the “Islamic State of Iraq and Syria” and terror groups like it wouldn’t even have to weaponize the virus to attempt to wreak strategic global infection. Such groups could simply use human carriers to intentionally infect themselves in West Africa, then disseminate the deadly virus via the world’s air transportation system. Or so says Capt. Al Shimkus, Ret., a Professor of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval War College. “The individual exposed to the Ebola Virus would be the carrier,” Shimkus told Forbes. “In the context of terrorist activity, it doesn’t take much sophistication to go to that next step to use a human being as a carrier.” The idea of using human carriers to intentionally spread deadly pathogens has been around for centuries. As Shimkus points out, in the Middle Ages, adversaries threw infected corpses over their enemy’s city walls in order to spread the deadly Bubonic Plague. Even in the event of terrorists using carriers to spread Ebola in western countries like the U.S., Shimkus doesn’t think the virus would spread exponentially simply because, in theory, advanced health care systems would be equipped to identify, isolate and stop the virus. In the May 2013 issue of the journal Global Policy, however, Amanda Teckman, author of the paper “The Bioterrorist Threat of Ebola in East Africa and Implications for Global Health and Security” concluded that “the threat of an Ebola bioterrorist attack in East Africa is a global health and security concern, and should not be ignored.”...more