Beyond Nice Attack: New-Age Weapons of Terror and Emerging Threats

After Nice, is the world well-prepared to deal with an imminent threat of CBRN terrorism and cyber-attacks?

France suffered another terrorist attack with Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, a delivery driver driving his lorry through the crowds celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, zigzagging some two kilometres, killing 84, including 10 children. He reportedly flashed a gun at the end of his mad race on the seafront but was shot down by the French Police. Hundreds are reportedly still in hospital with at least 50 fighting for their lives. Bouhlel had a French passport and his papers for the truck had passed scrutiny, although he was reported to be regularly in trouble with the law.

President Hollande has declared a state of emergency, anti-terrorist judges have  opened an investigation into this mass murder, investigators are busy conducting searches but the question is what next? Truck bombings have occurred in many parts of the world, and are happening periodically in Iraq and Afghanistan these days but these are detonation of vehicles packed with explosives, not driven through crowds in this manner.

Lone-Wolf Terrorist

To answer what lies next, one can start with the past. Consider how 9/11 was executed; using civil commercial aircraft, killing some 3,000 people, hurting US prestige and economy plus indirectly forcing the US to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. These suicide pilot-terrorists needed motivation – remember Japanese Kamikaze pilots who flew their aircraft right into the funnels of opposing naval ships? Look at the multiple Sarin Gas bombings of the Tokyo Subway in 1995, killing 13, severely injuring 50 and causing temporary loss of vision to around 1,000 people.

However, many wouldn’t know that the Aum Shinrikyo cult that undertook those subway bombings had enough Sarin to kill one million people, which they planned to spray using two remote-controlled helicopters.

Mercifully, both helicopters crashed during trials and the attacks were undertaken on foot. The Japanese security later discovered that the cult had even smuggled in a Russian Mi-8 helicopter, part by part, which was yet to be assembled. So if a recent ‘Lone Wolf’ study  while examining varying forms of attack surmised that a lone wolf could kill up to one million people using a chemical, biological or radiological device, it should not be surprising.

New Means Available

Remember the ramming of USS Cole by an explosive-laden fibre glass boat, killing 17 US sailors and injuring 39 in the year 2000, for which the Al-Qaida claimed responsibility? With technological advances and suicide bombers, terrorists today can use multiple delivery means through land, sea, sub-surface and air.

In 2015, Stratasys Ltd of USA announced that in conjunction with the Aurora Flight Sciences, it had developed the largest, fastest, and most complex 3D printed unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) ever produced. But then, why should terrorists go for 3D-printed UAVs or weapons when actual ones are readily available in the global market. Shoulder-fired Precision-guided munitions (PGMs) and hand-held EW guns can be used by terrorists against both civil and military targets.

Drones in all shapes and sizes are available for acts, which can even be used in multiples or swarms to get through the limited anti-drone gun cover. Drones with IR cameras could be used by terrorists at night to deliver chemical or radioactive payloads. In 2011, al-Qaida affiliate, Rezwan Ferdaus planned to attack Pentagon and Capitol Hill buildings using a drone, laden with explosives but the plot was intercepted before it could be executed.

Even without  weapon payload, drones can sabotage civil and military aircraft during landings, takeoff and flying. New means like the recent innovation of a wall-climbing robot (half-car, half-helicopter), that climbs the vertical walls easily, defying gravity, can be exploited by terrorists.

Advent of Body Cavity Bombs

Terrorists are developing new types of explosives, experimenting with commercially available products like fertiliser and chemicals, coupling them with radioactive-like material to increase destructive power. Body implants and body cavity bombs (BCB) have been on the scene. US intelligence believes the al-Qaida has devised a way to conceal explosives inside the body that can avoid detection by sophisticated scanners. They also claim that al-Qaida has developed an undetectable liquid explosive that can be soaked into clothing and ignited when dry. Terrorist organisations, particularly the ISIS, are developing CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear) capabilities, assisted by fissile material available in the black market.

Toxic radioactive agents can be paired with conventional explosives and turned into a radiological weapon. Recovery of a Uranium mine in northeast India in 2014 and the theft of a truck full of Cobalt-69 in Mexico in December 2013, are examples of inherent dangers of CBRN terrorism.

Fighting Against New Age Terrorism

• Terror attack in Nice unveils the threat that new age terrorism poses wherein human lives can be harmed through multiple means, including an innocuous-looking truck.
  
• Drones equipped with infra-red cameras or robots can be easily used by terrorists to launch chemical or radiological warfare.
  
• Emerging threat of CBRN terrorism is quite evident with instances of theft of fissile material in Mexico in 2013.
  
• Threat of an imminent cyber-attack means terrorists may not even need any physical infrastructure to cause large-scale damage.
  

Biological Warfare and Cyber-Attack

Cyber-attacks in the past have been successfully launched against pipelines, dams, communications, power and emergency systems at airports, sewage system, nuclear monitoring system, train signaling system, automobile plants, hospital systems, and the like. The ease with which critical infrastructure of a country can be harmed or destroyed through cyber-attack proves that as global information age progresses, more and more things are happening outside the control of even the most powerful states.

Notwithstanding the above issues, future surprises cannot be discounted, especially in this age of state sponsored terrorism and use of proxy forces by nations big and small, which raises the threat levels to a higher plane, CBRN and cyber-terrorism included.

(Lt Gen Prakash Katoch (Retd) is a Special Forces veteran of the Indian Army. He can be reached at @KatochPrakash)

Also read:

It’s a Miracle Over-Crowded India Doesn’t Invite Nice-Like Attacks