Iranian general warns of bio-warfare

by: Reza Kahlili 

Viruses can be turned into easily concealed weapons with high epidemic powers that could contaminate food, water and animals, Iran has warned.
Gen. Gholamreza Jalali, head of Iran’s Passive Defense Organization, in a recent event discussing defensive and offensive measures for cyber-attacks and viruses, talked about the strategic importance of using viruses as weapons to contaminate an environment, according to AsrIran, a media outlet of the Islamic Republic.
“Biological viruses are extremely clever and have the capability to distinguish their environment. These viruses can only be recognized in labs,” he said, stressing that these agents are easily hidden in the environment and can cause widespread epidemics.
Jalali said that viruses, parasites, botanical poisons and animal poisons are elements that can be used in biological warfare.
“The environmental threats include humans, domesticated animals, poultry, environment, natural resources, food industry and drinking water,” he said, identifying seven ways a biological agent could strike.

The United Nations’ Biological Weapons Convention has banned the development, production and stockpiling of these threats since 1975. But based on orders from Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country has made great progress in the field and currently several labs in Iran are working independently of each other in developing the biological elements, although the general said the effort is defensive.
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WND reported exclusively in December and January that, according to a source in the Revolutionary Guards’ intelligence unit with knowledge of Iran’s microbial research and development, Iranian scientists, with Russian and North Korean help, currently possess eight extremely dangerous microbial agents that, if unleashed, could kill millions of people.

The eight agents are anthrax, encephalitis (the blueprint of this virus, Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis, was provided by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in an agreement two years ago with the Islamic regime), yellow rain (developed with the help of North Korea), SARS, Ebola, cholera, smallpox and plague.
Iran, with North Korea’s help, has genetically altered the smallpox virus, which make current vaccinations useless against the new strain. And research at two facilities that act as drug companies but are fronts for the deadly research shows insects can be used as the vector to carry plague, infamous as the “Black Death,” according to WND’s sources.
A new SARS-like virus has been found in humans that could be “a threat to the entire world,” Dr. Margaret Chan, the director-general of the U.N. World Health Organization, told CNN recently.

“We do not know where the virus hides in nature,” she said. “We do not know how people are getting infected. Until we answer these questions, we are empty-handed when it comes to prevention. These are alarm bells. And we must respond.”
In another Iranian warning, Brig. Gen. Mohammadreza Naghdi, the head of the Basij paramilitary forces, said the regime is involved in a war that expands on five fronts with America, according to the Islamic regime’s media outlet Fars News Agency.
Fars reported Sunday that in a speech to Basij forces in Khorasan Province, Naghdi said, “We are at war with America in the political front, cultural, economics, science and technology.”
Claiming that America’s economy is disintegrating, he said, “America’s military budget has been reduced and they don’t have the means for battle.”
Naghdi said Western culture is on the verge of destruction and claimed, “All Western analysts are sure that America will fall.”
Naghdi told the forces that “an epic is made at the height of the war” and that it has two forces: “On one side are the people who make this epic, and on the other side are the oppressors with the leadership of America.”

In another interview, Naghdi set three conditions for America for any chance of betterment in relations with the Islamic regime: remove all of its bases from the region, remove its support of the “Zionist regime” (Israel) and ask for forgiveness for all of “its crimes against humanity.”
A report by the New York Times in 1998 indicated that U.S. officials were aware of the Islamic regime approaching Russian scientists who worked for laboratories tied to Moscow’s vast germ warfare program. American officials, according to the report, believed then that Tehran’s biowarfare program may have already turned some germs and toxins into weapons.
“Outside assistance is both important and difficult to prevent, given the dual-use nature of the materials and equipment being sought,” the CIA said in its report back then on Iran and its biological weapons program.