The ISIS Chemical Biological Threat to the West: a discussion with Dr. Jill Bellamy

by Jerry Gordon, Lisa Benson and Richard Cutting (January 2016)

The US was not spared ISIS-inspired terrorism. On December 2nd, an American born Pakistani husband and his immigrant Pakistani wife, who entered the US under an unvetted K-1 fiancée visa, killed 14 innocent colleagues of the husband in a blaze of assault weapons fire at a holiday gathering in San Bernardino, California. The open borders of the European Schengen System and the vulnerable US immigration control system were broken by these ISIS terrorist events against the backdrop of the massive Muslim refugee flight from Middle East and South Asian conflicts.


French Premier Manuel Valls at National Assembly, November 19, 2015

On November 19th, French Premier Manuel Valls warned the French National Assembly about the possibility that ISIS may have the capabilities in Europe to inflict mass casualties through the use of deadly chemical and biological weapons. The Daily Mail reported:

France’s prime minister has warned his country to be prepared for chemical and biological attacks as he told MPs that the ‘macabre imagination’ of ISIS is ‘limitless’.

Manuel Valls made the ominous prediction while calling on French MPs to extend the country’s state of emergency for another three months, amid fears another attack is imminent.

The warning comes as U.S. security officials report that they have found proof that ISIS is developing bio-weapons with the help of Syrian and Iraqi scientists in the Middle East.

arrested in Geneva, Switzerland on December 12th after a search of their vehicle revealed explosives and toxic gas. Just prior to the Geneva arrests, the European Parliament Research Service released a report entitled, ISIL/Daesh and non- conventional weapons of terror. It noted:

We are dealing with a very serious, well resourced, determined international terrorist organization that is now active on the streets of Europe. This represents the most serious terrorist threat faced in Europe for 10 years.


Dr. Jill Bellamy in Bio-Protection Gear

In conversations with Dr. Bellamy she had raised the threat that the Islamic State with more than $1 billion in funding from smuggled oil sales, extortion and looted bank hard currency and gold reserves could acquire the professional staff of scientists and technicians and equip laboratories for production of leading edge synthetic biological weapons. She had also drawn concern over foreign ISIS fighters in Libya gaining control of Gaddafi-era chemical weapons caches sealed by the UN.  

In two segments of the Lisa Benson Radio Show on National Security, on November 22th and December 20, 2015, listen here and here, a panel composed of Ms. Benson, Advisory Board Member Richard Cutting and Jerry Gordon held a discussion with Dr. Bellamy about these non-conventional ISIS chemical and biological weapons threats to Europe and the West. What follows is the consolidated discussion from both programs. 

 

Lisa Benson:  Welcome back, everyone. I would like to bring on Dr. Jill Bellamy.

 

 

Dr. Jill Bellamy:  Thank you very much for having me.

 

 

Benson:  You are recognized as an international expert on biological warfare, a member of the United Nations Counter Terrorism Task Force. You previously developed and ran NATO-sponsored policy programs on biological terrorism. You have  published extensively in these related fields in papers such as the National Review, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, Le Monde, Le Temps, New English Review, and the Jerusalem Post. It is my great honor to have you, Dr. Bellamy. I am going to turn this over to two of my colleagues and friends who know this subject much better than I do, Richard Cutting and Jerry Gordon.

 

Jerry Gordon:  Jill, Premier Manuel Valls of France alerted the media by drawing attention to the possible chemical and biological threat from ISIS. What do we know about this?

 

  occasions, they have used mustard agents. They have also used sarin. This has been confirmed by the UN. We have a situation where they have already been using it in the Caliphate. The potential that they could bring this into Europe is extremely high. This is very easy using the refugee routes. Thus chemical weapons use in France could result in mass casualties. However, the other side of this is the biological threat. IS does possess, and has been training, in the use of biological weapons. They have set up labs. They have recruited scientists. For me the bio side is much more of a risk to everybody. I think it is an international public health security threat.

Benson:  That is astounding.

Bellamy:  We need to be looking at those refugee routes extremely closely. We have huge refugee camps between Turkey and the border of Turkey and Syria. Refugee populations always represent a public health risk because of the living conditions in these camps. When you start exposing certain people in these camps to biological pathogens, and when these people come into Europe through the Balkans, it becomes extremely dangerous. You start to expose more people to different types of diseases. That kind of threat is something that we have to take very seriously. Valls is to be applauded for coming out with this statement.

Richard Cutting:  Dr. Bellamy, thank you for your work. You mentioned in simply do not have that kind of moral capacity. For them, this is just another class of weapons, and they will use it. Whatever works the best, whatever is the cheapest, they will use it. Preventing them from attaining this capability is absolutely vital and whatever we need to do we should.

Cutting:  If we put that together with your concept in the prior statement about possibly using refugees themselves as vectors and, an absolute lack of hesitation to use these weapons, you have something of a whole system there. Is that valid?

make any difference to them whatsoever. It would be a plus for them. However, we have something that could spawn into major pandemics. We need to be very aware of that.

Benson:  We have just reminded America that the refugee movements can be used as vectors for spreading biological weapons.

 in the countries of origin is my understanding of the problem. Is that true? How does that relate to the potential of ISIS using them as weaponized human beings?

know about that because of an incident that occurred just after 9/11 in Washington DC and across the country. We had 22 diagnosed cases, five of whom died and tens of thousands of federal postal and other employees innoculated. We spent over $300 million to clear government facilities. How can we deal with that threat?

over taking by IS. We have to speak to our lawmakers about bolstering the biological threat reduction programs to deal with this threat. Right after the Paris attack both France and Belgium were on high alert for a  biochemical attack. Jerry Gordon and you have been discussing that and the potential of ISIS using sarin gas and other toxic agents from Libya. Why does post-Gaddafi Libya represent a possible ISIS CBW threat to the European Union, Israel, and potentially the United States?

chemical weapons were destroyed. So they are basically sitting there. The problem would be how viable they still are if the sites have been overrun, which we think they have been. How viable are these chemical weapons? I would think that they probably still are. This is an extreme threat to Europe. However, we also believe that ISIS already has some chemical, biological, and possibly nuclear material in Europe. This is extremely serious. You see statements being made by the European Commission, and Premier Valls in France and Europe gearing up for a CBW and possibly nuclear attack.

Benson:  Are they prepared for this?

Benson:  What are you hearing about sarin gas coming out of Libya?

Gordon:  Just as we were starting this discussion, there was a flash announcement about a possible bomb aboard an Air France flight out of Africa. That raises a question about airport security. In light of your comment, I wonder if you could give us an illustration of how vulnerable airports are in Europe to a possible CBW attack.   

Gordon:  After the anthrax incident following 9/11 in October 2001, the U.S. government really got concerned and invested something in excess of $12 billion to protect major airports against a biological warfare threat here in the United States. The obvious question is: Was that money well spent, or are we, frankly, still in danger?

Benson:  What do we do? 

direction. If you willfully ignore certain types of intelligence you are reducing how protective you can be of your citizens. So this is a very difficult situation. In Europe, we have very limited resources in terms of intelligence. The United States obviously has more, and they have more assets available. Still it is, very concerning.

Gordon:  Is this attitude indicative of not only the U.S. intelligence community, but some national security echelons in Europe? What is behind their inability to come to terms with this threat, as against the so-called terrorist threat that we saw in Paris in November 13, 2015?  What is in the mindset of these folks when they are confronted with the opportunity, as my colleague Richard Cutting just said, to gain a treasure trove of information about what our enemies are doing to prepare offensive weapons?

Administration. I think that our greatest offense is preparing the public and doing it through civil-military exercises, and conducting periodic  drills. That is one of the major keys to protecting our societies. We really need to do this to reduce the bio warfare threat against vulnerable countries in the West.

Gordon:  This is an illustration of why this discussion is invaluable, imparting information that you could not obtain elsewhere in the media.

Benson:  Dr. Jill Bellamy, thank you. We value your insight, and on behalf of Richard Cutting, Jerry Gordon, and myself, keep it up and report back to us often. 

Bellamy:  Thank you very much for having me, Lisa. 

 

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