1 C2BRNE DIARY – February 2020 www.cbrne-terrorism-newsletter.com 2 C2BRNE DIARY – February 2020 C2BRNE DIARY– 2020© February 2020 Website: www.cbrne-terrorism-newsletter.com Editor-in-Chief BrigGEN (ret.) Ioannis Galatas MD, MSc, MC (Army) PhD cand Consultant in Allergy & Clinical Immunology Medical/Hospital CBRNE Planner & Instructor Senior Asymmetric Threats Analyst Manager, CBRN Knowledge Center @ International CBRNE Institute (BE) Director, Operations & Training @ QCBRN Academy (Qatar) Athens, Greece Contact e-mail: [email protected] Editorial Team ⚫ Bellanca Giada, MD, MSc (Italy) ⚫ Hopmeier Michael, BSc/MSc MechEngin (USA) ⚫ Kiourktsoglou George, BSc, Dipl, MSc, MBA, PhD (cand) (UK) ⚫ Photiou Steve, MD, MSc EmDisaster (Italy) ⚫ Tarlow Peter, PhD Sociol (USA) Advertise with us! CBRNE-Terrorism Newsletter is published on-line monthly and distributed free of charge. ⚫ Sponsors of the International CBRNE Institute can advertise for free. ⚫ CBRNE related companies can advertise for free. DISCLAIMER: The C2BRNE DIARY® (former CBRNE-Terrorism Newsletter), is a free online publication for the fellow civilian/military CBRNE First Responders worldwide. The Newsletter is a collection of papers/articles related to the stated thematology. Relevant sources/authors are included and all info provided herein is from open Internet sources. Opinions and comments from the Editor, the Editorial group or the authors publishing in the Newsletter do not necessarily represent those of the International CBRNE Institute. www.cbrne-terrorism-newsletter.com 3 C2BRNE DIARY – February 2020 C2BRNE DIARY is: 1. Read by First Responders in more than 80 countries around the globe; 2. Distributed free to more than 700 institutions, organizations, state agencies, think tanks, defense companies, institutions and universities. www.cbrne-terrorism-newsletter.com 4 C2BRNE DIARY – February 2020 www.cbrne-terrorism-newsletter.com 5 C2BRNE DIARY – February 2020 Editorial Brig Gen (ret.) Ioannis Galatas, MD, MSc, MC (Army) Editor-in-Chief C2BRNE Diary Dear Colleagues, There is no doubt that CoronaFebruary was the month that caught all the attention worldwide! I am sure that is not an outbreak but still do not know if it is an epidemic or a pandemic. The latter has not been announced from the WHO but the ongoing progress of the health problem fulfills the criteria – 29 countries in North America, Europe, Oceania, Asia. A second issue was the countermeasures taken from the Chinese government. Despite a number of predictions from respectful scientists about milions of deaths, the Western world worries more about civil rights and liberties than the spread of the virus. Perhaps in our societies we will kiss the virus to go away. I will not write again that too much democracy is bad for our health but I urge all to watch some “virus movies” like “Pandemic” or “Outbreak” in order to understand the magnitude of the problem. A third issue has to do with the availability of protective equipment. Soon a FFP2 face mask will worth a fortune not to mention that in some Chinese supermarkets people kill each other for the last piece on the self. A fourth issue is the debate if the Covid-19 is the revenge of the nature or a biological weapon that escaped from a biosecurity lab or was intentionally released. When comes to response and measures the coronavirus issue is a strong reminder of how a real bioterrorism attack would look like. The future offender might be an organism from the past or a new one constructed via the hundrends of novel biotechnologies with dual potentials. Last but not least, we must pay a tribute to heroic physicians and nurses that work 24/7 in hazardous environments without the proper logistic support (protective equipment; accomodation; food and water; etc.). When the virus will be contained, I think that all these people deserve a statue in all the cities affected along with a generous compensation that will help them return to normality (if still alive). The greatest respect to all the colleagues fighting the invisible enemy!!! As for the rest of us, just be alert; test your plans and keep in mind that any deviation from SOPs usually leads to death or injury! The Editor-in-Chief www.cbrne-terrorism-newsletter.com 6 C2BRNE DIARY – February 2020 SUMMARY OF THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON TERRORISM - Threats and Challenges after the fall of the caliphate November 2019 Source: https://www.counterextremism.com/sites/default/files/cep-cat-paris-conference-110719.PDF www.cbrne-terrorism-newsletter.com 7 C2BRNE DIARY – February 2020 Despite Defeats, the Islamic State Remains Unbroken and Defiant around the World By Brian Glyn Williams Source: http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/dr20200128-despite-defeats-the-islamic-state-remains-unbroken-and-defiant- around-the-world Jan 28 – In a series of bloody campaigns from 2014 to 2019, a multinational military coalition drove the Islamic State group, often known as ISIS, out of much of the Iraqi and Syrian territory that the strict militant theocracy had brutally governed. But the Pentagon and the United Nations both estimate that the group still has as many as 30,000 active insurgents in the region. Thousands more IS-aligned fighters are spread across Africa and Asia, from the scrublands of Mali and Niger to the deserts of Iraq and mountains of Afghanistan, to the island jungles of the Philippines. I keep track of the loose alliance of various global affiliates and insurgent groups collectively known as the Islamic State. It’s part of my research chronicling America’s wars in remote lands where I have worked for the CIA and the U.S. Army. I also monitor Islamic State activities around the world for a University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth project I lead called MappingISIS.com In recent months, the Islamic State group has reconstituted itself in the Syria-Iraq region and continues to inspire mayhem across the globe. Iraq, the Homeland of Jihadocracy The “Dawla Islamia,” or Islamic State, began as a Sunni Muslim insurgent group in Iraq amid the maelstrom of sectarian violence that followed the U.S.-led 2003 invasion. Up until then, Saddam Hussein’s ruling Baathist party had suppressed Islamist jihadi groups of all stripes, limiting influence in Iraq from Shiite-dominated Iran and Sunni-fundamentalist Saudi Arabia. In 2014 IS blitzed across the region and took over a wide swath of Iraq and Syria, where it functioned as a de facto government. It also maintained a ferocious fighting force, always seeking to expand the reach of its so-called “caliphate” fundamentalist Islamic regime. Since major defeats in 2017, the Islamic State group has retreated to a largely inaccessible sanctuary in the remote Qara Chok, Hamrin and Makhmoul mountains of northeastern Iraq. From there, they regularly attack U.S. and Iraqi troops, Kurdish forces and local Shiite militias. They also attract new Sunni recruits, resentful of discrimination and repression from the currently Shiite- dominated Iraqi government. The group’s terror campaigns include dressing up as government troops at fake checkpoints and executing “traitors,” killing pro- government tribal and village elders and executing government employees in night raids on their homes. In the summer of 2019, IS fighters in northern Iraq also burned hundreds of acres of crops belonging to suspected pro-government villagers whom they labeled “infidels.” Most recently, IS fighters have been heartened by the U.S. drone strike that killed Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who had led Iraqi Shiite militias against them. Soleimani’s death, which Islamic State leaders hailed as “divine intervention,” led to a halt in joint U.S.- www.cbrne-terrorism-newsletter.com 8 C2BRNE DIARY – February 2020 Iraqi operations against the Islamic State. Iraq’s parliament and prime minister have called for all U.S. troops to leave Iraq, which would provide opportunity for IS forces to expand their operations. Syria, the Former Terror Capital From 2015 to 2019, the Islamic State ran a government in the Syrian territory it occupied, based in the Raqqa province of northeastern Syria. That organization slowly collapsed under assaults by U.S.-backed Kurdish forces and the Syrian Arab Army, backed by Russia and Iran. As they retreated, IS leaders hid weapons caches and millions of dollars in the vast Syrian desert, and reconstituted their movement as a guerrilla fighting force. Since the defeat of their physical state, resilient IS insurgents in Syria have killed pro-government Russian soldiers, massacred pro- government Druze tribesmen, and attacked anti-ISIS Kurdish fighters and intelligence officers with car bombs and roadside bombs. Since President Donald Trump’s October 2019 announcement that U.S. troops would retreat from their bases in northern Syria, many Islamic State fighters taken prisoner by the Kurds have also broken out of their prisons. Nevertheless, roughly 70,000 Islamic State members and supporters – men, women and children – still remain in their Kurdish- guarded internment camps, which have, however, become training centers for a new generation of jihadist “Cubs of the Calihphate.” A November 2019 U.S. Delta Force operation led to the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Islamic State’s messianic leader – but the group has already chosen a successor and has vowed to avenge al-Baghdadi’s death. Nigeria, the Jungle Bastion In 2015, the members of the Boko Haram Islamist terrorist group, notorious for kidnapping local schoolgirls, swore allegiance to the Islamic State. As many as 4,000 of its fighters operate in the northeastern jungles of Nigeria, attacking army outposts, remote villages and even towns. They kidnap civilians and kill soldiers not just in Nigeria, but in the neighboring countries of Chad, Niger and Burkina Faso, defying multi-national military efforts to suppress their activity. Afghanistan, the Fortress in the Mountains In 2015, disgruntled, hardcore ex-Taliban from Pakistan and Afghanistan’s dominant tribe, the Aryan Pashtuns, formed an Afghan affiliate of the Islamic State in the remote, forested mountains of the country’s eastern Nangarhar Province.