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March 16, 2005
Zarqawi taking aim at 'soft targets' in US
Topics: War on TerrorI saw this the other day but never got around to posting on it. Few of us have doubted that the Islamofascists would try to bring their unique brand of terror and violence to our shores, the question was only how soon since we essentially have "open borders" with very little done to control the influx of illegal aliens and too great a tolerance of Muslim extremism being preached from the pulpit of mosques throughout the US. Now we are reading that:
(From ChannelNews on March 14) Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is planning attacks on "soft targets" in the
United States, including "movie theaters, restaurants and schools,"
according to reported comments by a former top aide to the Islamic
extremist.
The comments, cited in a restricted bulletin sent out to US
security agencies and published by Time magazine on its website Sunday,
come two weeks after intelligence officials confirmed that Osama bin
Laden had sent a message to Jordanian-born Zarqawi, urging Al-Qaeda's
frontman in Iraq to plan attacks on US soil.
(From the New York Times on March 15) The Department of Homeland Security, trying to focus antiterrorism spending better nationwide, has identified a dozen possible strikes it views as most plausible or devastating, including detonation of a nuclear device in a major city, release of sarin nerve agent in office buildings and a truck bombing of a sports arena.
The document, known simply as the National Planning Scenarios, reads more like a doomsday plan, offering estimates of the probable deaths and economic damage caused by each type of attack.
They include blowing up a chlorine tank, killing 17,500 people and
injuring more than 100,000; spreading pneumonic plague in the bathrooms
of an airport, sports arena and train station, killing 2,500 and
sickening 8,000 worldwide; and infecting cattle with foot-and-mouth
disease at several sites, costing hundreds of millions of dollars in
losses. Specific locations are not named because the events could
unfold in many major metropolitan or rural areas, the document says.
According to the NYT article, the most devastating of the possible scenarios in terms of loss of life and economic impact would be a nuclear bomb, the explosion of a liquid chlorine tank and an aerosol anthrax attack, none of which are very good choices for the continuation of life.
The same article points out that an anthrax attack involves terrorists filling a truck with an aerosolized version of anthrax and driving through five cities over two weeks spraying it into the air. The same report predicts that public health officials probably wouldn't know about the initial attack until a day or two after it started. By the time it was over, an estimated 350,000 people would be exposed, and about 13,200 would die. This is scary stuff!
Posted by Hyscience at March 16, 2005 8:25 AM
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- Zarqawi taking aim at 'soft targets' in US - Mar 16, 2005
