Rogue outfits such as the Lashkar-e-Tayiba and the Al Qaeda are constantly planning various ways to attack India. While there were intelligence intercepts following the Mumbai attack that the next attack could be from the sea, reports now point to the fact that the next on the agenda of terror outfits would be biological warfare.
Intelligence Bureau officials say that the Inter-Services Intelligence has helped these terror outfits set up bases in Afghanistan way back in the late 1990s to build laboratories to manufacture biological weapons.
The first of such labs was established in 1998 in Kandahar where chemical and radiological weapons were being manufactured.
There is also a laboratory set up to manufacture biological weapons in Muzzafarabad in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. This lab which belongs to the Lashkar-e-Tayiba is known as the electronics laboratory. Apart from manufacturing detonators for bombs and weapons, this laboratory has also a full fledged unit to manufacture biological weapons.
Several scientists were recruited exclusively for this purpose and have been working on the manufacture of these weapons since the past ten years. Intelligence Bureau sources they expect that terror groups would try and use biological warfare when all other means are exhausted.
The effects of this warfare could be deadly and the repercussions horrific. If terrorists manage to effectively strike with biological weapons then the people could suffer from yellow fever, drug resistant tuberculosis and tickborne hemorrhagic fever viruses.
Although the effects of such an attack would be slow, it is bound to cause social disruption coupled with instability and a huge impact on public health.
Tracking this kind of terror and carriers of such weapons is extremely difficult.
There is information that the 800 odd women that have been recruited by the Al Qaeda to infiltrate into India could pose the real danger. Several of these women have come into India and have taken up domestic jobs and will continue to work here until further orders or unless they are nabbed.
