The BioWeapons Monitor is an initiative of the BioWeapons Prevention Project (BWPP) to help monitor compliance with the international norm established primarily in the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). In particular, it aims to increase transparency of activities relevant to the BWC, which the current treaty regime does not do sufficiently.

Even terrorists play pranks on WMD use these days! Late May 2008, a purported terrorist video caught media attention and some serious coverage. As per the reports, the Al Qaeda video message urged Islamic jihadists to use “biological, chemical and nuclear weapons to attack the West.” Experts suspecting the authenticity of the video message dismissed the threat as a prank and not ‘Qaedaesque’ enough to get scared.1

The article analyses the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan’s threat of use of chemical weapons inside Pakistan. It looks at the recent such instance of possible low scale use of chemical agents and argues that the recent threat is more of tactical nature.

Paper titled “Islamic terrorism in India: organizations, tentacles and networks” has been published in Klaus Lange (ed.), Security in South Asia: Conventional and Unconventional Studies & Comments, No. 9, December 2009, Hanns-Seidel-Stiftung, Munich.

This paper focuses on Islamic terrorism in India (overview), with particular attention to the major groups operating and perpetrating violence in the country and their operational and logistical linkages.

Here is an excerpt:

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This paper explores the rising menace of Islamic extremism in South Asia while discussing key terrorist groups and networks and emerging terrorism trends.

The Taliban resurgence in Pakistan’s lawless provinces and its unhindered march towards the heartland of the restive country is fueled by an ever increasing economic life-line. Unlike Afghanistan’s Taliban, which depends on the poppy trade for revenues, the robustness of the Pakistan Taliban’s financial strength depends on a variety of sources, ranging from the timber trade, precious stone mining and now, the imposition of a religious/protection tax collected from minority religious communities.

Since the events of 9/11, transnational Islamic forces have consolidated more along religious lines with regional and local Islamic outfits to further the extremist cause worldwide. South Asia has been confronting the challenge of Islamic extremism for many years and in varied forms. Among the South Asian countries worst hit by Islamic extremism, India, with a Muslim minority population numbering over 140 million, has cradled a number of important transnational Islamic movements throughout history.

Alex P Schmid Animesh Roul James A. Goldston (5 July 2007)

James A. Goldston, Executive Director, Open Society Justice Initiative

Government responses to the challenge of terrorism since 9/11 have been plagued by three major problems. 

A New Face of Terrorism and Coming Anarchy, 15 Oct 2001

Animesh Roul outlines the challenges facing the world community, particularly the US, as terrorists begin to use unconventional means to intimidate and redefine established contours of terrorism. 

Biological Weapon: Most Preferred WMD, 15 Nov 2001