A new conspiracy theory has been juicing content on the internet’s more dubious “news agencies” with reports that Islamic State (IS) terrorists may send infected jihadists to spread the Ebola virus to the West. Now U.S. national security and health experts are giving credence to the possibility of low-tech biological terror attacks.
The Israeli News Agency (INA), self-described as Israel's first online news organization, initially reported that dozens of IS fighters in Syria have fallen ill with symptoms of the disease, allegedly contracted in African training camps. Citing confirmation by "Israeli security sources", the story raised prospects of IS moving into biological warfare.
"There is a very dangerous downside to Islamic terrorists being carriers of the virus," Norvell Rose wrote in WesternJournalism.com. The theory was bolstered by Shoebat.com, a Christian-themed blog created by a formerly radicalized Muslim, Walid Shoebat. He cites an IS statement published on Vetogate.com which read, "Soldiers of the Islamic State are mostly suicide bombers and all of them are ready…to drink Ebola if they were asked to carry and spread it in the United States." The statement continued, "The process of spreading disease is not difficult. It can easily be transported in a bottle in your bag from Africa to America. The contents of the bottle can then be released in an air-conditioning duct or put in the public drinking water."
Captain Al Shimkus, retired professor of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval War College, suggested that IS fanatics could send operatives into an Ebola outbreak region to intentionally expose themselves to the virus. 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.”
“It’s a plausible theory – IS fighters believe in suicide and this is a potential job for a suicide mission,” Professor Anthony Glees, Director at Buckingham University’s Center for Security and Intelligence Studies, told Forbes. “They are sufficiently murderous and well-informed to consider it, and they know that we’ve been remiss in the UK.”
Let’s park conjecture about conspiracies and go with common sense. Here’s what you need to know about Ebola, and how not to catch it.
