Spanish intelligence reports intercepted messages between online jihadists discussing the use of Ebola in attacks on the West.
Spain’s secretary for security, Francisco Martínez, testified before a congressional Interior Committee on October 30 about the alleged threat.
Martínez said a conversation was discovered in September in which “the use of Ebola as a poisonous weapon against the United States” was discussed in a forum “linked to ISIS.” He also mentioned tweets purportedly sent by Ansar al-Islam stating the terror organization was considering using “deadly chemical products from laboratories.”
Jeh Johnson, the Secretary of Homeland Security in the United States, downplayed the ISIS Ebola threat in mid-October. “We’ve seen no specific credible intelligence that [ISIS] is attempting to use any sort of disease or virus to attack our homeland” Johnson said in remarks to the Association of the United States Army.
Spanish Intelligence Role in Madrid Bombing
Considering the past history of Spanish intelligence, the purported ISIS-Ebola connection should be called into question.
One of five al-Qaeda suspects implicated in the bombing of the Cercanías train system in Madrid on March 11, 2004, killing 191 people, worked for Spanish intelligence.
Said Berraj met regularly with Spanish intelligence in 2003. Berraj ran errands for Serhane Abdelmajid Fakhet, said to be one of the masterminds of the bombings. Another government informant, Abdelkader Farssaoui, testified under oath that he witnessed Berraj and Fakhet meeting with their handlers in 2003.
Berraj was arrested in Turkey with other al-Qaeda operatives but released. He would later disappear and not face justice for the role he played in the Madrid bombings. Other suspects died after police surrounded their hideout about a month after the attack. Another suspect, Mohamed Haddad, escaped to Morocco where he remains free.
Other suspects had government connections. Jose Emilio Suarez Trashorras and compatriot Antonio Toro were government informants. Trashorras had the private telephone number of the head of Spain’s Civil Guard bomb squad when he was arrested.
Spain was involved in Operation Gladio prior to its entrance in the NATO alliance. Gladio was operated in Europe by the CIA and NATO. In particular, Gladio operatives connected to Argentina’s “Dirty War” were involved in assassinating members of the successionist Carlist movement and the 1977 Massacre of Atocha in Madrid.
The underhanded role played by the Spanish government in fomenting terror should call into the question the validity of its claim ISIS has weaponized Ebola.
Ebola Weaponized by States, Not Terror Groups
Governments are notorious for weaponizing Ebola. The United States and the former the Soviet Union in particular have a history of weaponizing Ebola and other deadly pathogens. It is likely that if ISIS conducts an attack using weaponized Ebola, the pathogen will have come from a laboratory in the West, not from Iraq and Syria.
If not for U.S., Gulf Emirate and Turkish assistance, ISIS would not exist. It owes its military ability to weapons provided by the Iraqi military and the United States.
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