A new form of threat against our homeland involve agriculture. Attacks against farm crops, livestock, produced or packaged goods are more vulnerable than skycrapers, bridges, nuclear power plants, or other high profile targets. Tainted food supply may produce a more serious effect as it encompasses a broader target expanse, in terms of people. Carrying out this type of terror threat is easy to do as there are a lot of unprotected farms that anyone could simply walk into and cause damage.
Agroterrorists could release damaging insects, viruses, bacteria, fungi, or other microbes aimed at wiping out crops and livestock. Disease-causing microbes are readily available in countries where they naturally infect crops and livestock. These types of microbes can be easily weaponized. A terrorist can easily walk into a farm with contaminated shoes and infect everything. Such an attack can be mistaken with a natural outbreak of disease, making it difficult to detect while providing a terrorist with plenty of time to spreat microbes elsewhere and escape.
1By Michael Woods, Post-Gazette National Bureau
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This page was last modified on ( Tuesday July 10, 2007 )
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