Plausibility check: Major terrorist bio-attack on US in the early 00's

I'm toying with an idea for a story that involves a major bio-attack on US soil as retaliation for the US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq:

What could plausibly be pulled off if US int has a real bad day?

I'm looking for ideas for:

1) Location of the attack
2) Scale - i.e. area and/or population affected
3) Type of attack (bio)
4) Logistics - what would be needed
5) Perpetrators - probably Al Qaeda or a sympathetic group
4) Plausibility - how lucky would they have to get to pull it off?

If you know of other (recommendable) threads discussing this, admittedly, rather grim AH-scenario, please drop a link ...

Thanks,

Chris
 
what if it isn't a group but a specific induvidual? I read somewhere the real life antharax attacks were carried out by a guy who worked in the U.S government.
Keep in mind he has complete trust att his point so it would be comparatively easy. I'd imagine the boston-washington area as these had the best transport links to a wide area
 
what if it isn't a group but a specific induvidual? I read somewhere the real life antharax attacks were carried out by a guy who worked in the U.S government.
Keep in mind he has complete trust att his point so it would be comparatively easy. I'd imagine the boston-washington area as these had the best transport links to a wide area

Thanks for the idea! I've set the story near San Francisco, but in principle it could take place anywhere in the US (although I'd like to keep it near the sea ... )

The potential suspect is a Pakistani man who is an IT-engineer, and who I figured would do 'IT-logistical' work for others in a covert network of resident terrorists. For example, he might hack certain public databases to gain information about, say, the water supply of a city, or other infrastructure that is a potential target of a bio-attack.

It need not be this way, though! The guy could well be working alone, although I am a bit skeptical about whether or not this would make it more or less plausible for him to have a chance of succeeding in making a bio-attack that would kill a lot of people.

I suppose a single person would have an easier time hiding, and (as we saw in Norway not so long ago), a single man could do a lot of damage if authorities are lax or screw up somehow. The Norway attack was of course done with guns and bombs, but in principle, I suppose, it could have been some kind of biological agent. Breivik certainly got close enough to the people he wanted to kill, without anyone discovering him.

Anyway, I am certainly open to suggestions that change the structure of the story in order to accommodate the most plausible scenario. I don't want to 'jam' the scenario into the story, so to speak.

(Note: The date for the attack is sometime around X-mas 2003 or early 2004, so a scenario would also need to take into account any specific technological, political, social or other relevant factors of that time.)
 
weaponized botulism aerosoled and dumped from a plane could kill millions in theory, if the winds were right and whatnot. Lots that could go wrong though.

But if it went just perfectly(!?!?), it could be truly catastrophic

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/intro/bio_botulinum.htm

Yes, that may be a potentially plausible idea ... because what if, as you say, things went right?

The article says:

"Despite skepticism that botulinum poison could be concentrated, stabilized, and aerosolized to make an effective military weapon against a specific enemy target, a botulinum attack against civilian targets may prove disturbingly effective. An aerosol release of botulinum toxins from a single point can kill or incapacitate 10% to 0.5 miles downwind of the release."

Thanks Deckhand, I'll definitely give this one a good consideration!
 
P.S. 2 additional questions

1) I wrote in an earlier post that the scenario (story) is supposed to take place around late 2003 or early 2004.

My knowledge of internal development in the US around that point is fairly scanty, but I seem to recall that there was definitely a surge in citizen surveillance after 9/11, etc.

Also, at least some part of Al-Qaeda have been hurt by the US actions in Afghanistan and other operations.

If we assume that the terrorists are Islamic (as was my original idea) and that there's a group or network of them, working together, on US soil ... what do you guys think would be the most plausible way for them to plan covertly and execute an attack in the US?

I know, you can always make the case the the bad guys have managed to be especially skillful and clever and evade detection, whatever their scheme is ... but I'm imagining that at this point in time both the US authorities and common citizens are particularly vigilant.

2) Assuming that the botulism-by-air scenario was successful over, say, San Francisco. It kills perhaps 10.000 people before it is stopped. It can be traced to Al-Qaeda or another, similar group ... Would there be any meaningful US response possible in this case if some or all of the terrorists are traced to Pakistan?
 
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