Worst-case scenarios that are more likely than you think

The likelihood that a Russian charter airplane, Metrojet 9268, was felled by a bomb after leaving Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, highlights how many national security stories we may be missing — stories that pose at least as much of a threat to the United States as the development of an Iranian nuclear weapon.

Consider: Al Qaeda is still fixated on blowing up airplanes, a dream that may have just played out in the Sinai. But other risks include loose nukes in Pakistan, three-stage rockets in North Korea that can hit the United States, radiological weapons on the Russian black market and the possibility that terrorists with a demonstrated interest in biological warfare will make use of the next major infectious disease outbreak to turn human beings into weapons.

All these threats are getting worse. All might do even more damage, near-term, than Iran.

Start with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, known as AQAP. The organization’s top bomb-maker, Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, is still at large — and still innovating. Six years ago, Asiri pioneered the implanted explosive device. He planted the first-known cavity bomb in his own brother, who blew himself up in front of Saudi Arabia’s Prince Mohammad bin Nayef. That same year, Asiri was implicated in the Underwear Bomber plot.

By 2010, he had moved on to a new idea: plastic explosives stashed in printer cartridges that were then placed aboard cargo planes. Two years later, he was collaborating with doctors to design new surgical techniques for planting his body bombs.
That none of these plots has succeeded (yet) is a credit to counterterrorism officials in the United States and allied nations. But we have to be right every time; Asiri only needs one lucky break.



Pakistan’s nuclear-capable air-launched “Ra’ad” cruise missile in the National Day military parade in Islamabad, March 23, 2008. REUTERS/Mian Khursheed/Files

Meanwhile, AQAP is carving out safe haven in Yemen, a nation that has fallen apart. While trying to counter rebels in Yemen backed by Iran, the Saudi air campaign has empowered Sunni extremists, including al Qaeda and Islamic State. The chaos will give Asiri and his pupils more room to practice.

Islamic State also bragged this summer that it could buy a nuclear weapon from Pakistan. The suggestion is alarming given Pakistan’s growing stockpile and history of proliferation. Even if you ignore the risk of a deliberate transfer — and many Pakistani officials do have a record of double-dealing with terror groups — Pakistan is still a nation that moves nukes in panel vans on surface roads.

It’s also the country with the world’s fastest growing nuclear arsenal. When Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif visited Washington last month, he failed to dispel U.S. concerns about the vulnerability of his country’s weapons programs. Leaders in Washington and New Delhi are rightly alarmed about Pakistan’s talk of developing tactical nukes for battlefield use. Not only would those weapons risk escalating conflict between India and Pakistan, they would also be catnip for Islamic State, the Taliban, and al Qaeda.



North Korean leader Kim Jung Un guides the test fire of a tactical rocket in an undated photo released by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency, August 15, 2014. REUTERS/KCNA

To the east, North Korea has restarted its reactor at Yongbyon and rolled out a new long-range missile — that may be capable of hitting the United States. The Hermit Kingdom has shown no signs of reining in its aggression and may be preparing for its fourth nuclear test. The country is also notorious for arms trafficking and proliferation. In 2007, Israel destroyed a Syrian-North Korean nuclear plant in territory now controlled by Islamic State. If the Kim regime does make progress on its weapons of mass destruction programs, those nuclear, chemical and biological advances risk showing up in terrorist hands around the globe.

Nuke smuggling is also good business in Eastern Europe, especially in Moldova, where authorities have only scratched the surface of a black market. Russian criminal vendors are reported to be actively seeking jihadist buyers, particularly those looking to harm the West. In Syria, where Russia’s intervention has frozen a disastrous status quo, chemical warfare continues. The fierce maelstrom now offers Sunni extremist groups a laboratory for their darkest dreams.



Syrian activists inspect the bodies of people they say were killed by nerve gas in the Duma neighbourhood of Damascus, August 21, 2013. REUTERS/Bassam Khabieh


How long before chlorine bombs show up in Turkey, Jordan or Israel? How long before Islamic State cobbles together its first radiological weapon — a dirty bomb bound for Ankara, Amman or Tel Aviv?

In a new report, the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense warns that we’re not paying enough attention to the third leg of the WMD triad: germ warfare. Former Senator Joe Lieberman, the panel’s co-chairman and former chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said this week that he’s shocked no jihadist group had yet pulled off a biological attack and warned that the United States is dangerously unprepared for plots that are less complicated than most probably think.

Islamic State’s drive to show viciousness — burning some captives alive, beheading others, torturing and enslaving even more — leaves little doubt that the extremist group might be willing to use toxins, germs or radioactive material in a major international plot. Its access to major population centers in the Middle East points to the potential for catastrophic harm.

Policymakers must consider that the lone wolf, armed with a bread knife and radicalized in his basement, may not be the era’s only short-term danger.

Counterterrorism is a science of worst-case scenarios. The risk of a game-changing plot is always small, but the kind of “black swan” events that could reshape the region look more and more real today. Better to overestimate the threat now than read about it in the papers tomorrow.


http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/11/13/worst-case-scenarios-that-are-more-likely-than-you-think/

Isis will continue their quest to reign supreme in the middle east, and moving with zeal, toward the west, and increases in size every day, we NEED TO BE PREPARED-

You're right Terbo!!! It's time to play our "TRUMP CARD"..........as politically "unpolished" as he is, he's the only one who has balls enough to end all this bullcarp. Don't get me wrong, I think Hillary has a set of balls (literally) but she could never use them.  Isn't this country fed up!!  I AM!!

It's time to elect somebody who is not in it for the political power and greed, Trump won't give a shit.......we can close the borders, ship out the illegals and just maybe it's not too late to regain our country. Oh, wait a minute, we may piss off some people who are in our country illegally and they might try to kill us...........THEY ALREADY ARE AND DO!!! What the hell have we got to lose??

Trump may not be all "politically correct" but he's got guts..........guts our President does not have!!  Unless of course you give him credit for being a plant whose only long term agenda is the demise of America and he sure has done a great job of that!!!!

Chevy while I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment of Trump and I too would like to see him in there but we must be realistic, he stands almost no chance of actually winning. He has not only fell behind in Republican support, and all but lost the independents entirely, but the polls (all of them not just the Lib controlled ones) from the very start has had him trailing Hilarious by a wide margin! A couple of the other Republicans show a much better chance of winning the general election against the Libs, notably Ben Carson although I know almost nothing about him, but apparently Trump's chances of winning the Presidency in the General election are almost nil even if he did win the nomination. It will do us no good to win the battle if it costs us the war!

Thanks- Now my day has been totally shot to hell- Trump's my man, and if he can't do it, nobody can-And as far as 'Killary' is concerned, she is as useless as tits on a trout, and couldn't 'ring' her chimes if they were attached to a doorbell, even if she was an fuller brush salesman, or an Avon, advocate- Keep this in mind, Chevy; 'A little bit of putty, and a little bit of paint, makes her look look like what she ain't!! I hear Killary is going into business making her own 'Special' cigars, just for Bill-

dwm007, unfortunately, I can't argue with you. some panty waste, probably Hillary will get in office because the general population of this country is just plain stupid. I don't know how else to say it.......the younger generation(s) have been raised to believe this is normal and if that didn't work, they were sent off to the vast majority of University's who are nothing more than Democratic controlled brain washing institutions who instill their liberal ideals in their brains, send them out after a few years with debt they can never repay and train them how to rely on the Federal Government for guidance and support. And it continues generation after generation after generation.

Short (not really) story on how to trap wild hogs.........you go to an open field and spread mounds of free and easy corn........the hogs will come. After they get accustomed to that, you build one side of the fence. You then spread more free and easy corn, the hogs are a little apprehensive but they still feed on the free corn. After they are used to that, you build another side to the fence........they are apprehensive once again but they still come for the free corn. Again, you spread more free corn until the apprehension subsides and they continue to come. After you have repeated the free corn dispersing long enough to build the fence, you leave a large opening for the gate. The hogs are apprehensive but......you guessed it.........they have gotten used to the free corn and their apprehension about the fence has subsided. So, you build the gate and leave it open, spread the free corn again inside the fence and....here come the hogs for their free corn. Once all are inside the fence, you close the gate!!! They don't know what hit em!! how could they know the free corn, all this time, was a TRAP! This is what our federal government has done to this country!! It's pathetic and most of the population doesn't even have a clue!!

So dwm007, you're probably right, this country is going to continue to elect the dispenser's of the "free corn" and we will soon enough stop "swirling around the drain" and will be headed straight to the sewer..UNLESS.......there is some sort of an uprising here in America where the people say "enough is enough"!!! Unfortunately, it's probably gonna take some very high ranking U.S. officials getting killed before the general population wakes up and realizes we are in serious trouble!!  Did I say "unfortunately"??

For sure during Obama's first term the rest of the world probably thought we had lost our minds and then we went back to the voting booths a second time and proved it beyond all doubt!

I hope we can correct that this time around but it may be too far gone now with all the illegals here and all. My ancestors were here when the Great European invasion began in 1492 and we got "out-voted" by the "Foreigners", it looks like it has come full circle and is about to happen again!