Hezbollah’s UAV Biological Weapon Capability: A Game Changer?
(June 2013)
Lebanon by Hezbollah militants. The threat was detected over the Mediterranean Sea on 25 April 2013 and was destroyed shortly after by an air-to-air missile. The encounter occurred at 13:30 local time, and an air force helicopter transporting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for an official visit to the north of the country landed as fighters scrambled. Israel's latest interception of a UAV is the fifth such action to have been performed by its air force in the past decade.
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Ababil Iranian UAV launch ready
Historic Precedence
Could Hezbollah Acquire a UAV BW Capability?
Why a Biological Weapon Payload Poses a Unique Risk
A toxin agent is most effective when prepared as a freeze-dried powder and encapsulated. Such encapsulation, however, is not necessary for weaponization. Infectious biological agents are generally stabilized and then spray dried.13
Under appropriate meteorological conditions and with an aerosol generator delivering 1-5 micron particle-size droplets, a single aircraft can disperse 100 kg of anthrax over a 300 km 2 area and theoretically cause 3 million deaths in a population density of 10,000 people per km2. The mean lethal inhalator dosage is 10 nanograms.
The use of a UAV would likely increase probability of consistent dissemination and stability of the agent.14
Aerosolization of biological agents using spray devices is the method of choice since the extreme physical conditions associated with explosive dissemination can completely inactivate the biological agent. (Aerosol dispersal allows for control of particle size and density to maximize protection from environmental degradation and uptake of the enclosed biological agents in the lungs of targeted populations.)15
Dissemination efficiency rates of aerosol delivery systems are in the range of 40-60 percent. Cruise missiles, aircraft carrying gravity bombs or spray attachments, and fixed-wing or rotor craft with attached sprayers are all vehicles for delivery of biological agents. The delivery of biological agents by explosive devices is much less efficient (~1-5 percent).16
The preferred approach is dispersion via the use of a pressurized gas in a submunition. Other preferred platforms from an efficiency standpoint include small rotary-wing vehicles, fixed-wing aircraft fitted with spray tanks, drones, bomblets, cruise missiles, and high-speed missiles with bomblet warheads.
The Syrian biological weapons program, run primarily out of the SSRC in Damascus, Cerin, Homs and Aleppo, are designed to be highly agile and compartmentalized. They utilize such technologies which are far superior to maintaining and continually upgrading a BW stockpile. For this reason, Syria, Iran and other nations who now run BW programs generally do not stockpile these weapons. The lack of a stockpile, even the lack of signatures on UAV mounted payloads, makes it far more difficult to identify, than during the Cold War Era.
illustrates the existential risk to the global community from BW verses chemical or nuclear weapons.
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_transnational_activities_in_counterproliferation
[3] http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/kouri/060905
[5] Ibid.
“Overhauling Counter proliferation Intelligence: testimony to The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction (The “Robb-Silberman” Commission)”, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, John F. Kennedy Center, Harvard University
[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_transnational_activities_in_counterproliferation
https://mail.google.com/mail/ca/u/0/?ui=2&shva=1#inbox
[9] http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/intro/bio_delivery.htm
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Ibid.
[19] http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/06/ff_futuredrones/
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