Report: Islamic State trying to develop biological weapons

'Foreign Policy' reports that laptop computer seized from IS operative reveal plans to develop weapons of mass destruction.

By JPOST.COM STAFF
Chemical weapons disposal [file] (photo credit: REUTERS)
Chemical weapons disposal [file]
(photo credit: REUTERS)
The Islamic State, the organization that has employed brutal methods to take over large swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria, is also trying to develop biological weapons , Foreign Policy reported, citing information found on a laptop computer seized from an IS operative.
Foreign Policy obtained the computer from a moderate Syrian rebel group who seized the laptop in the Idlib province from an Islamic State hideout whose fighters had fled.
The laptop, belonging to a Tunisian operative of the Islamic State, named Muhammed S., with a background in chemistry and physics, included a 19-page document on developing biological weapons and weaponizing the bubonic plague.
"The advantage of biological weapons is that they do not cost a lot of money, while the human casualties can be huge," the document says in Arabic, according to Foreign Policy.
Among the files on the seized computer is also a ruling from a Saudi cleric justifying the use of weapons of mass destruction. "If Muslims cannot defeat the unbelievers in a different way, it is permissible to use weapons of mass destruction...Even if it kills all of them and wipes them and their descendants off the face of the Earth."


Related Tags
chemical weapons