After Covid, Terrorists May Resort To Bio-Warfare

The pandemic is helping terror groups’ recruitment drives. Their task is made easy as job generation slows down, people, especially youth, lose their sources of income while the world economy experiences the worst recession in living memory. The crisis is producing armies of unemployed and disillusioned youths who are being targeted for recruitment and indoctrination

- Ameen Izzadeen

Striking at the enemy’s weakest link is a well-known military strategy. This strategy had been emphasized by Chinese General Sun Tzu (5th-6th Century BC) in his famous work, Art of War. Even ancient India’s political advisor Chanakya had backed this strategy.

The strategy is not lost on international terrorist groups such as the ISIS, either.

As the Covid-19 pandemic brings the world’s powerful states to their knees, needless to say they are at their weakest. Their helplessness in their battle to bring the pandemic under control is as much an exposure of their weak links as it is an enticement for the enemy to strike.

The three-month-long worldwide lockdown has not seen, however, a major terror attack, although in conflict-ridden Afghanistan, myriad terror groups are continuing their terror activities regardless of the rapid spread of the Covid pandemic. Two weeks ago, Afghan terrorists targeted even a maternity hospital, demonstrating how evil they could be in their pursuit of terror.

In other areas, the absence of a major terror attack, like the Boston marathon bomb, the London Bridge stabbings, the Manchester Arena blast or the November 2015 multiple terror attacks in Paris, does not mean the terrorists are not taking advantage of the current situation. If the international community takes heart at the fact that terror attacks have virtually come to a halt during the pandemic, it is a false sense of security. The terrorists are said to be making use of the Covid crisis to regroup.

With many War-on-Terror frontline countries concentrating more on the fight against the unseen coronavirus enemy, the terrorists are let loose to plan their strategy to make the first strike in the post-Covid world’s War on Terror.