The al-Qaeda epidemic began in the cave hideouts of AQLIM in Tizi Ouzou province, 150km east of the capital Algiers. The group, led by wanted terror boss Abdelmalek Droudkal, was forced to turn its shelters in the Yakouren forest into mass graves and flee.

The extremists supporting madman Osama bin Laden went to Bejaia and Jijel provinces — hoping the plague did not go with them.

A source said: “The emirs (leaders) fear surviving terrorists will surrender to escape a horrible death.”

AQLIM boss Droudkal claims to command around 1,000 insurgents. Training camps are also based in Morocco, Tunisia and Nigeria.

AQLIM bombed the UN headquarters in Algiers in 2007, killing 41. Attacks across Algeria last year killed at least 70 people.

In an interview last July, Droudkal boasted his cell was in constant contact with other al-Qaeda “brothers”.

a.west@the-sun.co.uk[/QUOTE]

Yes, it  (and N Korea with 6 nukes) is quite worrisome.

"see them die" Question who dies how many and how far does it spread. Does it spread to our soilders and do they bring it home with them??? This isn't a good story....

We get cases of plague almost every year in the Southwest. It is easily cured now in any modern society. If they got it, it was more then likely because they dwell in caves amongst critters that still catch it and spread it, not because we dropped it.

There is speculation that this infection is the result of a failed bio-weapon experiment by the terrorists. 'Failed' of course, is a relative term. The worrisome aspect of this is this: How many other bio-weapon efforts are underway - and what happens when/if they have one of those 'oops!' moments in the lab?

HG

From the Centers for Disease Control:

PLAGUE VACCINE

Plague vaccines ** have been used since the late 19th century, but their effectiveness has never been measured precisely. Field experience indicates that vaccination with plague vaccine reduces the incidence and severity of disease resulting from the bite of infected fleas. The degree of protection afforded against primary pneumonic infection is not known. Persons exposed to plague patients who have pneumonia or to Yersinia pestis *** aerosols in the laboratory should be given a 7- to 10-day course of antimicrobic therapy regardless of vaccination history. Recommended antimicrobials include tetracyclines, chloramphenicol, or streptomycin.

The plague vaccine licensed for use in the United States is prepared from Y. pestis organisms grown in artificial media, inactivated with formaldehyde, and preserved in 0.5% phenol. The vaccine contains trace amounts of beef-heart extract, yeast extract, agar, and peptones and peptides of soya and casein.

Serum antibody to Fraction I capsular antigen, as measured by the passive hemagglutination (PHA) test, is correlated with resistance to Y. pestis infection in experimental animals. A comparable correlation between PHA titer and immunity probably occurs in humans.

Following the primary series of 3 injections, about 7% of individuals do not produce PHA antibody, and a few fail to develop a titer of 128, the level correlated with immunity in experimental animals. PHA titers should be determined for individuals who have an unusually high risk of infection or who have a history of serious reactions to the vaccine in order to govern the frequency of booster doses. Such testing can be arranged through state health departments. Since plague vaccination may only ameliorate illness, whenever a vaccinated person has a definite exposure, prophylactic antibiotics may be indicated whether or not an antibody response has been demonstrated.

Vaccine Recipients

Vaccination is recommended for:

All laboratory and field personnel who are working with Y. pestis

organisms resistant to antimicrobics, 2) Persons engaged in aerosol experiments with Y. pestis and 3) Persons engaged in field operations in areas with enzootic plague where preventing exposure is not possible (such as some disaster areas).

Selective plague vaccination should be considered for:

Laboratory personnel regularly working with Y. pestis or

plague-infected rodents, 2) Workers (for example, Peace Corps volunteers and agricultural advisors) who reside in rural areas with enzootic or epidemic plague where avoidance of rodents and fleas is impossible, and 3) Persons whose vocation brings them into regular contact with wild rodents or rabbits in areas with enzootic plague.

Primary Vaccination

All injections should be given intramuscularly.

Adults and children greater than or equal to 11 years old: The primary series consists of 3 doses of vaccine. The first dose, 1.0 ml, is followed by the second dose, 0.2 ml, 4 weeks later. The third dose, 0.2 ml, is administered 6 months after the first dose. If an accelerated schedule is essential, 3 doses of 0.5 ml each, administered at least 1 week apart, may be given. The efficacy of this schedule has not been determined.

Children less than or equal to 10 years old: The primary series is also 3 doses of vaccine, but the doses are smaller (Table_1). The intervals between injections are the same as for adults.

Booster Doses

When needed because of continuing exposure, 3 booster doses should be given at approximately 6-month intervals. Thereafter, antibody levels decline slowly and booster doses at 1- to 2-year intervals, depending on the degree of continuing exposure, should provide good protection.

The recommended booster dosages for children and adults are the same as the second and third doses in the primary series. However, if serious side effects to the vaccine occur, their severity may be reduced by using half the usual dose. The primary series need never be repeated for booster doses to be effective (Table_1).

SIDE EFFECTS OF VACCINE

Primary vaccination may result in general malaise, headache, fever, mild lymphadenopathy, and erythema and induration at the injection site in about 10% of recipients. These reactions occur more commonly with repeated injections. Sterile abscesses occur rarely. Rare cases of sensitivity reactions manifested by urticarial and asthmatic phenomena have been reported.

PRECAUTIONS AND CONTRAINDICATIONS

Plague vaccine should not be administered to anyone with a known hypersensitivity to any of the constituents, such as beef protein, soya, casein, and phenol. Patients who have had severe local or systemic reactions to plague vaccine should not be revaccinated.

The safety or efficacy of vaccination with plague vaccine during pregnancy has not been determined, and therefore it should not be used unless there is a substantial risk of infection.

For a current listing, consult the most recent issue of the World Health Organization's Weekly Epidemiological Record; current information is also available from the Quarantine Division, Center for Prevention Services, Centers for Disease Control, Atlanta, Georgia 30333. ** Official name: Plague Vaccine *** The designation Yersinia pestis is used advisedly since there is reportedly a recommendation by the International Committee on Systematic Bacteriology to reclassify this organism as Yersinia pseudotuberculosis ssp. pestis (WHO. Weekly Epidemiological Record 1981;56:399).

That the Black plaque has killed al qaeda soldiers. It could be that they did that to see how quickly it would spread and how many died. Or it could be that more are infected and they are going to spread it to our soliders and then to us. There will be no stopping it, once it gets started over here.

True! The Bubonic Plague is also in the ground squirrel population in SE Oregon/North central California - and has been since at least the late 1970's.

Once again, from many sources, the "caves containing Al Queda" are mythical. One of the photo shoots of OBL surrounded by members were day workers hired for the picture and had some difficulty finding weapons to carry.

It might be noticed that in newer news stories they are crediting and using the Al Queda name less and less. The final CIA study on Iraq which has been posted, showed no sol.id link between AQ and Iraq before the invasion.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200410/s1214475.htm (this link has been removed but still was in my browser buffer)
bypass link jump http://tinyurl.com/awwjla

This is ABC mainstream, not National Enquirer. This is solid data.
and BBC 

(content captured)
ABC

Abu Musab Zarqawi. (file photo) (Reuters)

CIA finds no Zarqawi, Saddam link

A CIA report has found no conclusive evidence that former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein harboured Al Queda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, which the Bush administration asserted before the invasion of Iraq.

"There's no conclusive evidence the Saddam Hussein regime had harboured Zarqawi," a US official said yesterday about the CIA findings.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, stressed that the report, which was a mix of new information and a look at some older information, did not make any final judgments or come to any definitive conclusions.

"To suggest the case is closed on this would not be correct," the official said in confirming an American ABC News story about the CIA report that the network said was delivered to the White House last week.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5328592.stm (link now non-functional - buffer capture)

bypass link http://tinyurl.com/ohzam

Saddam 'had no link to al-Qaeda'

Democrats say the report weakens Mr Bush's case for war There is no evidence of formal links between Iraqi ex-leader Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda leaders prior to the 2003 war, a US Senate report says. The finding is contained in a 2005 CIA report released by the Senate's Intelligence Committee on Friday. US President George W Bush has said that the presence of late al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq before the war was evidence of a link. Opposition Democrats are accusing the White House of deliberate deception. They say the revelation undermines the basis on which the US went to war in Iraq. The BBC's Justin Webb in Washington says that the US president has again and again tried to connect the war, which most Americans think was a mistake, with the so-called war on terror, which has the support of the nation. The report comes as Mr Bush makes a series of speeches on the "war on terror" to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the 11 September attacks. _______________________________________ Requests rejected The report is the second part of the committee's analysis of pre-war intelligence. The first dealt with CIA failings in its assessment of Iraq's weapons programme.

It would seem the myth has to be kept alive of power central organization. Some inside sources believe OBL has been dead for over two years, having been critically wounded in an attack. During a series of searches, the U.S. military were looking to find his body, but could not come up with much.

Subsequent Al Jazeera broadcasted tapes were often done by others and it has been said the real OBL had plastic surgery done long ago, and looks nothing at all, if still alive, like the photos and tapes circulated. In fact, it has been stated he could walk down a New York street in a suit with a briefcase, and look like any other businessman.

The 8 years of fear of terrorist attacks on the U.S. with no successful attack of any kind in almost 9 years would point to a very disjointed and disfunctional orginization when a single student at Virginia state could do more damage than the AQ has done in nine years.

The documentary on this myth, and the climate of fear used to generate trillions of dollars in spending to defend against an enemy which forever is in the shadows. Over the hundreds of cases credited to AQ, most were done by small separatist groups of Muslims, and there are hundreds of them.  The actual attack at 9/11 was neither done nor planned by the Al Queda, and the confessions of the most prominent Muslim showed him to be inconsistent and disjointed in his confessions and data. 

Nevertheless, politicians and others will continue, every time there is 'terrorist' incident to attribute to a well organized group with cells and the evil mastermind OBL.

With the fall of the Soviet Union, and no true terrorist enemy which has conducted a single harmful strike in the continental United States, a fear based ideology must continue. We all must be under attack from something and money must be spent to defend us. In the meantime, issues of privacy, legal rights, and such were increasingly violated as millions were placed under surveillance without warrants and often without cause.

What was once the criminal database, expanded to DMV records, libary records and even habit of citizens such as what books they would check, on the net, keylogging infiltration programs planted on computers, and common services, such as are present in Vista and WeatherBug create portals used by the Akimata company to infiltrate private computers and send the data back which is sold to advertisers and used to monitor people.  You can easily find this contamination on your computer by running cmd and then netstat.exe . You will amazed at how many people are monitoring your computer right now without your knowledge and how virus cleaning utilities actually plant trojans and worms which monitor your surfing activity. The most serious is something nestled in system32 directory which is basically a mainline for those who wish to look and do and keep huge databases of your surifing activity, your private information, and detailed logs of the text content of your emails at key monitoring flow points. This was inserted years ago at main servers which mass monitor all web traffic. The supreme court ruling has been "there is no reasonable expectation of privacy on the net - and there is none."

All this, based on a training camp originally founded to train Muslims to spread their religion to other countries, and at least before the camp was totally wiped out by naval Tomahawk missiles, the U.S. was never a real target for attack. A single Harvard graduate, with a very small group of followers (300 or less) and a slightly larger group of sympathetic Muslims maybe at best in tens of thousands, as opposed to a Muslim population of 2.6 billion.

Case after case, of allegation of terrorists under torture admitting to more incidents and actions than they could have physically committed, from Muslims who as stated by the people torturing them 'love to talk' would indicate that under torture regimes that could not even be done in the U.S. continent because they would violate Geneva convention laws, like the Salem witch trials, they would say anything.

The justification of this was to get 'vital data' of a coming attack which then would be thwarted and save thousands of lives.

My personal days are numberd. My health is poor and so it might be said -truth is a luxury of the dying.

You may of course consider all of what has been said IMHO except for this BBC series which is rather intense and fairly well documented.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lI8q5EjpIng&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge32u7ipCc4 (link now disabled) buffer capture and tiny substitute to link to>

http://tinyurl.com/cagkzg

and finally independent video for entertainment value only.  All documents declassified from Top Secret and research conducted based on formal media released statements and press.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRMiqV0g6Ig&feature=related  link down

jump http://tinyurl.com/b9lo4n

Something to take your mind off the Depression um extreme recession.

Irony - why is this on a Bird Flu site?

The threat of an impending Pandemic is far more real than a terrorist attack using nuclear weapons or chemicals. The use of a biowarfare virus which could easily spread across the U.S. would be the most effective and deadly attack leaving all structures, manufacturing faciilty, even military craft and resources untouched and subject to use by the enemy.

No area would be radiated, no enemy combatants would be required to spread the virus, and the effect would be as deadly, or could be as a sizable nuclear strike or even an EMP burst from a low flying satellite.

There are many military strategists in the world, and they are not all peasants and goat herders. The single target of OBL was to destroy the American economy. He stated that by creating a climate of fear with just a few people, the loss of power in the world by a devastated economy would be a great achievment than any direct attack on the U.S.

Some of the world's greatest scientists and researchers are not American. Massive nuclear technology has been directly sent from Pakistan to North Korea. Extensive bioweapon research has been done in North Korea.

Point: our greatest threat besides the wretched economy, is a Pandemic - caused by natural or unnatural sources. Given the current 63% fatality rate in verified cases by WHO and 83% in Indonesia - it would toast what is left of our economy and health care system.

Focusing on real threats and extremely possible scenarios is a far better idea. Prep. What will take out America is far more likely to be a virus than a bomb.

Medclinician

note: this is an exercise in objectivity. There is no agenda, no finger pointing, no purpose except to focus on what is important. It is inevitable there will be several waves of Pandemics. It is imperative you prepare for them if you wish a better chance of survival.
It is also a high priority the communities develop plans and groups to best use local resources when there be little if any federal, or state resources for use by the general population. Most of the resources will be used to preserve the infrastructure of 11 million as opposed to 300,000,000 civilians.

We will be on our own in a Pandemic. Better to accept this as a reality from the get-go, than be traumatized when it happens. The is a no fault situation. For the leader, the resources are not there to fight 1,000 Katrinas. The focus to protect America and preservethe government for what comes after the waves of Pandemics. This is like a no-fault divorce. Some things are just the way they are. We do not have the health system to handle a pandemic, we do not have the military or local law enforce capability to handle over a 5% (some say 3-4) CFR. We do not have an effect vaccine which can handle splintering Avian into many strains in China by the use of their Pandemic causing vaccine on their poultry which makes high poultry asympotmatic and carriers.

It is like president Obama against the leviathan of the failing economy. He didn't start the fire.

Medclinician

mazinn wrote: medclinician wrote: Once again, from many sources, the "caves containing Al Queda" are mythical. MY POINT PERSONALLY is that plague isn't the best choice for a bio terror weapon and that I'm sure anyone seeking to use bio terror would opt for something more lethal and easy to acquire or make, and to connect this outbreak with bio terror is a panic response that lacks logic.    .    Pandemic or bio terror? Eenie Meenie Minniee Moe..... Who knows where our next disaster will come from.   Discussing which direction is conjecture, not to mention a Pandemic could be started by bio terror... so the two directions are not even  clear cut.     Again, my point:  THis likely started from poor sanitation in a poor country where people have close contact with animals, whether in caves or not doesn't matter a bit.  Whether our next disaster is a bio attack or a Pandemic or a bio attack that STARTS a pandemic also doesn't matter.   What does matter is to keep a level head, and stop running from shadows.....because if you do, when/if a Pandemic or bio attack happens, you'll be too tired of running from the shadows you imagined to care, or think clearly.    And clear thinking is the best defense any of us have against ANY threat.

Very true. And very well presented in the video I put up concerning the need for us to stop operating in an environment of fear. Recently, or maybe in the last decade, agenda, or having an agenda, became a catch phrase.

There was a series I was watching last night called Jericho about after a nuclear whatever, and a top secret document said that no social change or anything significant could not happen without violence, fear, revolution, or war.

In the last 15 years old friends have come back to haunt us. Bubonic Plague is one of them. And we have new generations of people who do not have herd immunity against things like Polio and Smallpox which we had once wiped out.

Every outbreak is not a terrorist plot. In fact, we face the bogyman mentality. When was the last time we were attacked by biochemical or chemical warfare. They had an incident in London, and we have had a few of our own home grown terrorists (Unibomber) - or the bomb in Oklahoma City - but making people afraid makes them buy protection. And the government is protection. The government must have something out there scary so we will pour billions in to defend ourselves.

It does matter if there is an Al Queda. It does matter if OBL is alive or dead. It does matter if the horror beheading films were made by terrorists. And it would matter if a city were blown up, if we blew it up ourselves.

This has been done in the past, created attacks from nations and groups to establish a reason to strike back.

In your throat right now are Staph, Strept, and in your body are numerous pathogens which if your immune system shut down, as in an HIV patient, you would be a bacterial petri plate in a day, and dead within a month or so, if not less.

We don't need plague in the Al Queda. This reads like a National Enquirer headline. I have talked to NE several times and in the past had actual news or unusual things to publish.
They were not interested in real news. They make up stories that people like to read and in politics, the technique is to tell different stories to different people, like dating several women, to get support from everyone. Eventually, like the women, they find out.

The irony is we don't need the terrorists to do us in. If we don't get our act together soon economically, they can watch us take an economic nose dive on their high density cable without setting off a single bomb or firing a single bullet.

We have become, in many respects, become our own worst enemy, making horrific political decisions and allowing abysmal judgment calls in high places that are truly messing up our whole country.

Norovirus right now is sweeping all over the world. We have three active Pandemics - TB, Malaria, and Dengue Fever. MRSA and VRSA are crawling all over our hospitals, sometimes killing more people than the health problems they came in with.

Our milk is full of germs, pasteurization doesn't work anymore, and they radiate our food without labeling it radiated.  I was recently going to publish a paper saying that because of the double burn on yogurt, there are no living organisms in yogurt. Take a microscope and look at yogurt you might be very surprised.

Point - people make money out of scaring people. Someone probably thought it would be a cool idea to say plague was sweeping through the al Queda. So, is this to say in wisdom, we would release plague to fight the terrorists. Germs aren't too picky who they infect.

Training camps, some vast network of highly organized spies and cells ready to set off cities with suitcase nukes - There are lots of training camps all over the globe and covert planning that have nothing to do with AQ. They are radical Muslims who don't like America and gather resources and infiltrate us far more than blow us up.

The Pandemic is a reality that is coming. It is not if, but when. I would venture to guess our wait for something to blow up again may be awhile. Its been 9 years. The chances of a world wide Pandemic - there is something solid.

Running from shadows costs a lot of money, and we are running out of it.

Medclinician

There was one virologist who developed a strain of hantavirus for bioweapons which was said to be the worst yet - or extremely deadly. He was interviewed by someone I spoke to personally and was killed less than 3 days later in a "gang attack in a parking garage."
I am the only person to have ever posted this on the net.

In the last 5 years, virologists and microbiology fatalities have far exceeded any normal rate. There was a list sent with names of people who died under questionable circumstances and their area of research. Life expectancy for bioweapons creators is very short.

The use of Anthrax as a bio weapon is ludicrous. The delivery requires a chopper, big tanks and a lot of Anthrax. It may have caused a stir in the legislature when it arrived in envelopes, but the real danger, even of weapons grade Anthrax is far less that hanta - which along with a modified Ebola - could do some serious damage.

Also, I have posted many times of the new prion design bio weapons. Prions are very nasty. We know little about them, except how to make weapons with them.

The entire concept of an Al Queda army should have been put aside with the last administration. I would have been more convinced if they said a warlord or Taliban group had perished. There a multitude of Warlord in Afghanistan than are causing us far more grief than any Al Queda ever will.

So let's get serious. You want to talk nasty bioweapons.. try this..

http://aftermathnews.wordpress.com/2008/09/11/scientists-create-species-jumping-hybrid-prions/

Scientists create species-jumping hybrid prions

September 11, 2008 · No Comments

Sure, speculation is fine,  but my point is this: some people on this forum were not speculating, they were saying very off the wall things that bordered on hysteria...THAT is not productive. 

The fact is, pneumonic plague is deadly. Most die within four days, anti biotics are not too effective because by the time a person gets to the Dr. the virus has already got too much of a strangle hold. I posted a scientific report to back that up and it is easily verified.

abcdefg wrote: The fact is, pneumonic plague is deadly

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/plague/qa.htm