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Read, Debate: Engage.
| located: | Iraq, Syria, Tunisia |
|---|---|
| editor: | Vanessa Ellingham |
A laptop taken from an ISIS hideout in Syria includes lessons for making biological warfare.
Foreign Policy magazine has published an account of what the laptop's hidden folders contain, after it was handed to them by the commander of a moderate Syrian rebel group which attacked a building where ISIS members had been hiding.
Among the finds in English, French and Arabic are justifications for jihadi organisations, manuals for making bombs, lessons in disguise and instructions for stealing cars.
And then the heavy stuff: a 19-page document on how to weaponise the bubonic plague from infected animals.
According to Foreign Policy, the manual states: "The advantage of biological weapons is that they do not cost a lot of money, while the human casualties can be huge."
Comments on Foreign Policy's report ranged from terrified to cynical: "How convenient! Just as the US have troubles coming up with a reasonable justification in international law for air strike operations, a laptop - luckily the one with all the plans - comes up. 2003 Iraqi weapons of mass destruction threat all over again?"
While nothing on the laptop proves that ISIS currently possesses these weapons, as its membership grows there are likely to be scientists in its ranks with the capabilities to carry out instructions like these.
