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Foreign Policy Magazine reports that a moderate Syrian rebel group in northern Syria has captured a black Dell laptop in a village in the Syrian province of Idlib close to the border with Turkey that contained 35,347 files that turned out to be a treasure trove of documents that provide ideological justifications for jihadi organizations -- and practical training on how to carry out the Islamic State's deadly campaigns. They include videos of Osama bin Laden, manuals on how to make bombs, instructions for stealing cars, and lessons on how to use disguises in order to avoid getting arrested while traveling from one jihadi hot spot to another. Most disturbing however, is that the ISIS laptop contains a 19-page document in Arabic on how to develop biological weapons and how to weaponize bubonic plague from infected animals. "The advantage of biological weapons is that they do not cost a lot of money, while the human casualties can be huge," the document states. The document includes instructions for how to test the weaponized disease safely, before it is used in a terrorist attack. "When the microbe is injected in small mice, the symptoms of the disease should start to appear within 24 hours," the document says.
"Nothing on the ISIS laptop, of course, suggests that the jihadists already possess these dangerous weapons. And any jihadi organization contemplating a bioterrorist attack will face many difficulties," write Harald Doornbos and Jenan Moussa. Al Qaeda tried unsuccessfully for years to get its hands on such biological weapons, and the United States has devoted massive resources to preventing terrorists from making just this sort of breakthrough. "The real difficulty in all of these weapons ... [is] to actually have a workable distribution system that will kill a lot of people," said Magnus Ranstorp. "But to produce quite scary weapons is certainly within [the Islamic State's] capabilities." The documents found on the laptop of the jihadist, meanwhile, leave no room for doubt about the group's deadly ambitions.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 01 2014, @06:18AM
How do you account for that the west *need* those resources? moral or not..
It's indeed true that the need is dire but that's only thanks to 150 years of insane decisions accelerating down the dead end...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 02 2014, @02:19AM
And one must also account that "the west" is not a monolithic singularity, but a vast plurality, as is the "non-west". I.e. it's not a simple matter of "the west leaching resources it wants and/or needs from the east", but rather in all various scenarios it's more of "these particular groups in varying degree get these resources in varying degree". Depending on who precisely you are, including importantly both the color of your skin, your gender, your religious, philosophical and scientific beliefs, etc... you might find yourself doing variously prosperous or less well in various scenarios (of traditonal "westerners exploiting resources of non-westerners").
I've been indoctrinated as a U.S. citizen fairly well about values of freedom of speech, privacy from unreasonable warrantless surveillance, freedom of religious practice, etc... But I've also lived to see that indoctrination for the blatant hypocrisy it is. Likewise I expect there are similar people on the other side of the globe, living as close to "ISIS Terrorist Laptop Toters" as I am to "CIA Freedom Laptop Toters" with god knows what kind of information about tools of suffering on their hard drives. And probably if my parents had done their lubricated dancing on that side of the globe, I'd pay about as much lip service allegience to the ISIS folks as I currently pay to the CIA. I love you guys- please protect me, and not rape me. You guys are awesome!!!