Israel Matzav

'Only a matter of time before terrorists use weapons of mass destruction'

There's a lot of concern in the world today that Iran is on its way to acquiring nuclear weapons. But according to Henry "Hank" Crumpton, the newly-appointed head of counter-terrorism at the US State Department, biological weapons constitute a much bigger potential threat:

In an exclusive interview with The Daily Telegraph, Mr Crumpton, who previously spent 20 years working for the Central Intelligence Agency, warned yesterday that the "war on terror" was likely to last for decades.

"This threat has changed the way we will fight wars in the future," he said.

"We are talking about micro targets such as al-Qa'eda which, when combined with WMD, have a macro impact. I rate the probability of terror groups using WMD [to attack Western targets] as very high. It is simply a question of time.

"And it is not just the nuclear threat that bothers me. I think, if anything, the biological threat is going to grow.

"As catastrophic as a nuclear attack would be, it would be self-contained. But if you look at a worst-case scenario for a biological attack, it would be difficult to determine whether or not it was a terrorist attack, and it would be far more difficult to contain."

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:33 PM