'Medicines are coming': This IB intercept points to a rising danger of bio-terror

In the month of January the Intelligence Bureau picked up two intercepts which speaks about sneaking in medicines into India. In the months to come a team of the Intelligence Bureau analysed this alert.

After deciphering this alert it was found that a group known as the Harakat ul-Muhojirinfi Britaniya was planning on bringing in biological and chemical weapons into India. This group specialises in training its cadres in the use of chemical, bacteriological, and biological weapons.

The Intelligence Bureau also learnt that the group was trying to smuggle the weapons into India through Bangladesh. The two intercepts spoke about smuggling medicines and on deciphering the same it was
found that it was a code word used for biological and chemical weapons.

Intelligence Bureau officials say that the group did not manage to go through with its plan. It may have been dropped as it would not have been feasible. Terror groups have been attempting to launch chemical and
biological attacks for sometime, the officer notes.

The threat

The IB says that there are various groups which are capable of a biological strike. However most of these groups have not used such weapons as yet. For the moment, the terrorist groups are still carring out test runs.

The reason that terrorist groups will be slow to use these weapons as it is their trump card. Experts say that they will conduct many more trial runs before they actually deploy it to fight the enemy.

A couple of instances reported both in Pakistan and Iraq show that biological weapons have been used. Biological agents were used to contaminate the water as a result of which several persons had taken ill. It appears that the terrorist groups tested these agents in very small quantity and hence none lost their lives.

Intelligence agencies say that the target cities for terrorist groups to use biological weapons in India will be Delhi and Mumbai. In Pakistan, there is a chance of the same being used in Khyber Paktunkhwa, Sindh, Islamabad and Karachi.

Intelligence Bureau officials are aware of the capabilities of groups such as the Lashkar and Taliban which use sophisticated weapons. The threat of nuclear and biological weapons being smuggled had started as far back as 1998. IB officials say that routes in Assam and Kashmir have to be monitored at all times since these groups are most likely to bring in such weapons through these routes.

OneIndia News