Revisiting the Siegrist Criteria...

Revisiting the Siegrist Criteria to Demonstrate the Bioterrorist Threat Posed by the al-Qaeda Network to the Security of the United States

Author Contact Data:
Graham G. Grove
Graduate Student – Biodefense Program
Department of Molecular & Microbiology
College of Science
George Mason University
Email: ggrove@gmu.edu

*Manuscript received 3 October 2006

Abstract

In 1999, David Siegrist published one of the first articles that identified three prerequisites for a biological terrorist attack to occur: vulnerability, capability, and intent. He then concluded that while vulnerability and capability were already in place, the United States had yet to suffer a large-scale attack because no terrorist organization of that time would risk alienating its support base by resorting to such a devastating form of violence.
Now more than a half a decade later, a new form of terrorism has arisen. One in which the fear of losing a support base does not deter the intent to maximize the number of causalities. With this willingness now present, it is important to revisit Siegrist’s criteria and demonstrate why the United States is at immediate risk of a bioterrorism attack.

Introduction
In a 1999 article, The Threat of Biological Attack: Why Concern Now?, David Siegrist outlines three

prerequisites for a biological terrorist attack to occur: (1) a vulnerable target, (2) a person or group with the technical and institutional capability to deliver a sizable attack, and (3) the intent to carry out such an attack. Siegrist then goes on to say that that while the United States was indeed vulnerable, no attack has happened yet due to a lack of intent by those groups that possess the technical and institutional capabilities.

     Now seven years later, an organization, al-Qaeda, who according to intelligence reports already possesses the rudimentary expertise to produce and deploy biological weapons, is demonstrating that intent. With this development, a frightening question has to be asked: Is the United States vulnerable to a bioterror attack launched by al-Qaeda?

    By revisiting the Siegrist criteria to demonstrate the United States’ current weaknesses in biodefense as well as the capability and intent of the al-Qaeda network, it can be shown why a biological terrorist attack by this group against the United States is just a matter of time.

Current Vulnerabilities in the United States Biodefense Program

The first of Siegrist’s criteria pertains to the vulnerability of an intended target. As Siegrist notes, the United States, in 1999, provided an especially vulnerable target due to the decades of neglect in several key areas of biodefense – namely the deployment of pathogen sensors, the development of new medicines, the stockpiling of prophylactic drugs, and the ability of local emergency centers to handle large-scale emergencies. While the United States has done much in recent years to correct these shortcomings, such as

stockpiling 5 million doses of anthrax vaccine and 300 million doses of smallpox vaccine, placing hundreds of indoor and outdoor air monitors into operation, and training more than 175,000 emergency response personnel (Gordon 2006); it still remains quite vulnerable to the threat of a biological attack.

    One main point of vulnerability for the United States concerns the lack of new research and development in the field of prophylactic drugs. As Tara O’Toole, the Director of the Center for Biosecurity of the UPMC, recently testified before the United States House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce Hearing on Project BioShield Reauthorization Issues, “what is missing from the US government’s biodefense funding strategy is support during the so-called ‘valley of death’, the crucial middle phase of drug development between basic research and acquisition of final products” (O’Toole 2006). Since prophylactics do not generate profits comparable to those produced by medicines for chronic diseases, such as cancer, private companies will remain hesitant to invest their own capital in what is seen as a less lucrative field. As quoted in a 2004 study by the Center for Biosecurity and the Sarnoff Corporation, “you make a new antibiotic and if it’s really terrific you’ll have peak sales of $300-500 million per year. If you make a drug for cancer that extends life by 4 months, you can charge $40,000 per dose” (Gilfillan 2004).

    Without some form of government funding, prophylactic drug research will continue to be an unattractive option for private investors. Technology has reached a point now where even a modestly trained and educated individual has the ability to

produce an artificial pathogen. Without continual drug development and enhancement, it will become increasingly difficult for the United States to protect its citizenry from either a pathogenic mutation or an unforeseen bioengineered agent.

The second major point of vulnerability for the United States is a lack of a coherent biodefense response plan. While it is true that much has been done in recent years to train medical personnel and stockpile vaccines in case of a biological incident, the United still does not have a well-established, multi-level crisis management plan for dealing with a large-scale biological attack. As seen in the aftermath of the 2001 anthrax attacks and again with Hurricane Katrina, ineffective communication between federal, state, and local response personnel and poor agency coordination only compound the negative effects of an emergency disaster. If the nation is unable to handle a small-scale biological attack, such as the anthrax letters, or even a foreseen natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina, how will it be able to mitigate the effects of a large-scale covert biological attack?

In biodefense, negating target vulnerability does not necessary mean the outright prevention of an attack. As stated by Siegrist, since “the intention of a potential attacker is difficult to manage…limiting vulnerability is the most promising way to prevent or mitigate biological attacks” (Siegrist 1999). By fostering vaccine research and implementing a sound response plan, the United States may not be able to prevent an attack by a determined group, but it will be able to mitigate its overall impact.

Technical Capabilities of al-Qaeda’s Biological Weapons Program

The second criterion of Siegrist’s prerequisites for a biological attack pertains to capability of a group or individual to deliver a sizable attack. When Siegrist first published his article in 1999, very little was actually known about the biological capabilities of any terror group due to the secretive nature of both biological weapon programs and terrorism itself. He therefore theorized that it was probable that only those terrorist groups with state sponsorship would have the capability to obtain biological weapons and to implement a sizable attack. This belief was perhaps based on the assumption that the substantial challenges faced in achieving the levels of technical and institutional sophistication that are needed to acquire biological materials and to build a weapons program could only be overcome by a nation-state entity. Smaller unaffiliated organizations, like al-Qaeda, simply would not have the means or expertise at their disposal for such an endeavor.

However, with the recent release of intelligence reports citing that al-Qaeda may have developed an independent rudimentary biological weapons program as early as 1998; this idea of dependency by a terror group on nation-state sponsorship appears somewhat flawed. If al-Qaeda did indeed covertly lay the foundations of an independent biological program during the late-1990s, it is now more than ever important to determine whether the group achieved the level of sophistication needed to deliver a sizable attack against United States soil. In order to do this, a brief timeline will be sketched to illuminate what was and still remains a clandestine undertaking by al-Qaeda.

The Buildup

    Prior to the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, the biological weapon program of al-Qaeda was largely a mystery. It has only been in the last few years that analysts and academic researchers have begun to compile information and examine the group’s actual capabilities (Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction 2005).

   One of the first academics/analysts to discuss the development al-Qaeda’s secret biological program was Yossef Bodansky. In his 1999 book, Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America, Bodansky notes that as early as 1998 Afghan and Arab fighters were being sponsored and trained by Osama bin Laden and Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence at a fortified compound somewhere just outside of Qandahar, Afghanistan where “weapons [were being] prepared in special chemical- and biological-agent production laboratories purchased in the former Yugoslavia and shipped [into Afghanistan] via Pakistan” (Bodansky 2001). Evidence also suggests that an assortment of biological agents was being purchased about the same time from the former Soviet Bloc nations of Russia (Ebola and salmonella) and Czech Republic (botulinum biotoxin), as well as North Korea (anthrax) (Venter 1999). Moreover, Bodansky’s research also uncovered evidence suggesting the possibility of a secondary base of biological weapons production may have been established in Zenica, Bosnia-Herzegovina under the guidance of Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed (Venter 1999).

    Additional understanding was obtained after the September 1998 arrest of Ahmad Salamah Mabruk, a

commander for the group Islamic Jihad. During his interrogation in the months following his detention, Mabruk reportedly informed his captors that the World Islamic Front, a known front for al-Qaeda, had in its possession “biological and chemical weapons which it intend[s] to use in operations against [American] and Israeli targets” (Bodansky 2001). Mabruk’s statement was later independently confirmed in April 1999 by the arrest and subsequent testimony of an unnamed Islamic commander (McCormick 2001).

In November of 2001, The Economist magazine reported that documents discovered in a Kabul office of a Pakistani scientist included several detailed calculations concerning how to disperse anthrax via balloon (Economist 2001). Later, in the same month, a Wall Street Journal reporter purchased two computers said to be from another Kabul office used by senior al-Qaeda operatives. Upon an investigation of the hard drives, the journalist reportedly discovered a cache of al-Qaeda password-protected files dating back to 1997. What was most disturbing about the reporter’s find, however, was two small pieces of information discovered within those files. The first piece of information indicated that al-Qaeda had embarked in a bio-chemical program codenamed Curdled Milk shortly after the August 1998 bombings of the Nairobi Embassy (Cullison 2001). The second bit of information was a short memo dated 7 May 1999 that stated that the organization [al-Qaeda] had already

The World Islamic Front Against Crusaders and Jews was created in February of 1998 by Osama bin Laden as a vehicle for building working relationships between al-Qaeda and other radical Islamic groups.

These files were later confirmed to be authentic by the United States Government.

allocated between $2,000 and $4,000 in funding for the initial start-up of a bio-chemical program (Leitenberg 2002).

   By the early months of 2002, the United States Department of Defense began to publicly express concern about al-Qaeda’s potential biological weapon capabilities. In a press briefing dated 19 February 2002, an undisclosed senior Pentagon official confirmed findings by the United States military and intelligence agencies in Afghanistan that supported reports that al-Qaeda was “very seriously interested in acquiring chemical [and] biological weapons” (United States Department of Defense 2002). The official then went on further to state that “al-Qaeda is one of the groups that we are more concerned about, because it’s one group we believe, if they acquired it, they would use it or at least think of using it. Other groups, that have a state sponsor behind them, would think twice about it or have second thoughts about it. Al-Qaeda really does not have that state that would stop them from doing that” (United States Department of Defense 2002).

    The Pentagon official’s statements were later echoed in an 8 April 2002 Central Intelligence Agency letter addressed to the Chairman of Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Bob Graham. In the letter, the Central Intelligence Agency informed Senator Graham that the “documents and equipment recovered from al-Qaeda facilities in Afghanistan since 11 September show that bin Ladin was pursuing a biological weapons research program” (Venzke 2003).

   In September of 2002, additional findings near Kandahar, prompted officials from the Pentagon released another statement to the press. This time admitting that it appeared that al-Qaeda

may already have the ability to produce a very limited supply of biological agents (Miller 2002). This fear seemed to be reconfirmed on 17 October 2002, when the (now former) Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, George Tenet, testified before the United States Joint Inquiry Committee that his agency had learned that al-Qaeda had on numerous occasions attempted to acquire material used in not just biological weapon production, but also materials needed for chemical, radiological, and nuclear weapon development (Venzke 2003).

Director Tenet’s October testimony also came on the heels of several credible news reports that had surfaced claiming that the home of bin Laden’s personal physician and advisor, Ayman al-Zawahiri (Miller 2002), had tested positive for trace amounts of anthrax. These reports, along with the United States military’s discovery of a partially built biological weapons laboratory near Kandahar (Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction 2005) designed for anthrax production seemed to have confirmed that al-Qaeda was at the very least attempting to weaponize anthrax by 2002.

On 7 January 2003, the Central Intelligence Agency released a report to the United States Congress simply stating that the “documents and equipment recovered from al-Qaeda facilities in Afghanistan show that bin Laden [does indeed possess] a more sophisticated biological weapons program than previously discovered” (Venzke 2003). Shortly after this report’s release, a March 2003 raid in Pakistan resulted in the capture of al-Qaeda’s operations chief, Khalid Shaikh

Mohammed. Along with Khalid, a cache of documents was discovered. Upon examination, the documents revealed that al-Qaeda had already acquired necessary materials for the production of two forms of bio-toxins: botulinum and salmonella (Stern 2003). The documents also provided detailed information concerning the actual production plans for chemical and biological weapons and references to the possibility that the group was very close to producing anthrax bacteria (Gellman 2003). Based upon the information obtained from the captured documents and the subsequent interrogations of Khalid, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, on 2 April 2003, alerted all law enforcement agencies to the possibility of the existence of al-Qaeda run facilities capable of producing chemical and biological agents (Jane’s International Security News 2003).
Unfortunately, since Khalid’s capture in 2003 and the corresponding alert by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, very little supplemental information on the current status of al-Qaeda’s biological weapons program has been uncovered. Only occasional reports and press releases from foreign intelligence agencies in the United Kingdom, France, and Jordan (Katzman 2005) seem to hint at the program’s current production capabilities and present bases of operations. However, it can be rationalized that if al-Qaeda was nearing the ability to produce weaponized anthrax in 2002 and had

At the time of his capture, Kahild had been staying with Jemaah Islamiyah member Abul Quoddoos Khan. Khan is reported to be a bacteriologist.
Unconfirmed news sources indicated that al-Qaeda’s new base of biological operations may be located in one of the following areas: Bosnia- Herzegovina, Chechya, The Republic of Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge, and East Africa.

acquired the materials for the production of botulinum and salmonella in 2003, that during the intervening years the group has more than likely also gained the rudimentary expertise to launch a serious biological attack against the United States.

Al-Qaeda’s Determination to Use Biological Warfare

Siegrist final criterion concerns the intent to carry out an attack. In 1999, Siegrist initially speculated that no group had yet carried out a biological attack due to concern over losing its support base. With the conventional terrorist groups that predominated until the late 1990s, “levels of violence were carefully calculated to draw attention but not to be so high as to alienate supporters” (Siegrist 1999). Nevertheless, Siegrist did forewarn that the emergence of postmodern ‘super-terrorist’ organizations, with the aim of maximizing causalities, might render this obstacle obsolete.

One of the new ‘super-terrorist’ groups originally alluded to by Siegrist is al-Qaeda. Unlike the traditional terrorists of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, al-Qaeda is not grounded in a political ideology, but in the interpretations of quasi-religious teachings and a fanatical devotion to the idea of Jihad or ‘holy war’. Also, unlike the traditional groups, al-Qaeda is not bound by any single localized base of support. Rather it is a transnational network of loosely-tied radicalized cells with key inspirational figureheads, such as Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, providing guidance. And just as predicted by Siegrist, this lack of a single localized base of support as well as a fanatical devotion has removed the main obstacle

that hindered earlier groups resorting to biological attacks.

     In fact, as early as September 1999, the leader of al-Muhajiroun, Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed, stated in an open letter to Osama bin Laden that the usage of “any biological weapons in self-defense is, in Islam, permissible, and I believe that we are currently operating under a defensive jihad. Obviously, we regret what could happen to innocent people, but there are always people who are war causalities or, if you like, victims of war” (Venzke 2003).

     After his 28 September 2001 arrest, the Millennium bomber, Ahmad Rassam, reportedly testified that bin Laden was seeking to obtain low-flying airplanes or crop-dusters to disperse biological agents across the United States (BBC News 2004). A later federal investigation confirmed that one of the 9/11 terrorists, Muhammad Atta, had in fact, during the months prior to the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, inquired about the obtainment and usage of small crop-dusting planes (Council on Foreign Relations 2004).

     In November of 2001, captured American Taliban supporter, John Walker Lindh, claimed he had heard rumors on numerous occasions that bin Laden and al-Qaeda were planning several forthcoming biological attacks against the United States (CNN 2002). In a June 2002 article entitled In the Shadow of the Lances, known al-Qaeda spokesperson Sulaiman Abu Ghaith wrote, “We have the right to kill four million Americans – two million of them children – and to exile twice as many and wound and cripple hundreds of thousands. Furthermore, it is our right to fight them with chemical and biological weapons, so as to afflict them with the fatal maladies that have

afflicted the Muslims because of the [Americans’] chemical and biological weapons” (Venzke 2003).

In addition to the abovementioned verbal threats and battlefield rumors, there also has been significant evidence to suggest that al-Qaeda may have already attempted to execute several biological attacks against allies of the United States. In January of 2003, British police arrested eleven suspected al-Qaeda operatives in a London flat. In their possession was reportedly a substance thought to be the bio-toxin ricin. Although the substance was later determined not to be ricin, there was significant evidence to indicate that the group was planning a possible ricin attack against American military troops stationed in Afghanistan and Kuwait (Toner 2003).

In January 2004, the French intelligence agency arrested eight relatives of Menad Benchellali, a son of a radical Venisseux imam, on charges of planning a biological attack against the French capital of Paris. French officials later confirmed that the captured suspects independently admitted that Mr. Benchellali, a chemist trained in al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, who was already under arrest for unrelated terrorist activities, had instructed them from his cell in production of the bio-toxins botulism and ricin. The suspects’ admissions also seemed to confirm an earlier French intelligence service memo dated November 2002 that referred to an “organized attempt by al-Qaida linked radical Islamists to manufacture or acquire chemical and biological weapons to be used in attacks” (Henley 2004). The memo also stated that the men involved in such an attack would most likely to be comprised of “veterans of Afghanistan with chemical and biological expertise who have recently

returned from fighting Russian forces in Chechnya” (Henley 2004).

Yet, despite voicing public warnings since September of 1999, until recently very little attention has been paid to al-Qaeda’s actual willingness to launch a biological attack against the United States. Considering that al-Qaeda lacks the single localized base of support that, in the past, has restrained conventional terrorist groups from committing this form of escalated violence, the United States can ill afford to deem this demonstrated intent as being the negligible rants of an unsophisticated group.

Conclusions

     When Siegrist published his three prerequisites more than a half decade ago, he concluded that while United States was indeed a vulnerable target, no a large-scale attack had yet occurred because those terrorist organizations that potentially possessed the capabilities lacked the intent. A fear of alienating their support bases by resorting to such a devastating form of violence seemed to have held the genie of biological terrorism in its bottle.

     However, since 1999, a new group of ‘super-terrorists’, in the form of al-Qaeda, has arisen to prominence. Possessing both the technical capabilities and a demonstrated willingness to maximize violence against its enemies, it appears that the question now no longer concerns if the genie will be unleashed by al-Qaeda against the United States, but rather when.

     Yet, all is not as hopeless as it may seem. While an attack by this determined group cannot yet be prevented, at least its overall impact can be mitigated. By fostering new vaccine research and implementing a coherent

response plan at federal, state, and local levels, the vulnerability of the United States can be lessened. It may not be a cure, but it is at least a promising start.

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[Abstract]

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