The Washington Examiner – by Paul Bedard
Former top government officials who have been warning Washington about the vulnerability of the nation’s largely unprotected electric grid are raising new fears that troops from the jihadist Islamic State are poised to attack the system, leading to a power crisis that could kill millions.
“Inadequate grid security, a porous U.S.-Mexico border, and fragile transmission systems make the electric grid a target for ISIS,” said Peter Pry, one of the nation’s leading experts on the grid.
Others joining Pry at a press conference later Wednesday to draw attention to the potential threat said that if just a handful of the nation’s high voltage transformers were knocked out, blackouts would occur across the country.
“By one estimate, should the power go out and stay out for over a year, nine out of 10 Americans would likely perish,” said Frank Gaffney, founder and president of the Center for Security Policy in Washington.
At the afternoon press conference, Gaffney dubbed the potential crisis the “grid jihad.”
A lack of electricity would shut off water systems, impact city transportation services and shutdown hospitals and other big facilities. Fresh and frozen foods also would be impacted as would banks, financial institutions and utilities.
Pry provided details of recent attacks on electricity systems and said that ISIS could easily team with Mexican drug cartels to ravage America.
He told Secrets, for example, that the Knights Templar drug gang blacked out the electric grid of the Mexican state of Michoacan in 2013 to provide cover for killing those fighting the drug trade.
“The Knights Templars and other criminal gangs in Mexico will do anything for money, and ISIS, the richest terrorist organization in history, has hundreds of millions of dollars at its disposal,” said Pry.
“ISIS could hire one of the Mexican cartels, or one of their criminal gangs already in the U.S., or activate jihadist terror cells already in the U.S., and inflict a multi-state blackout immediately, within days or weeks. Perhaps even a nationwide blackout,” Pry explained to Secrets.
“I am not saying it is likely they will do so. But given the capabilities and objectives of ISIS and our obvious vulnerabilities, it would be foolish to ignore the threat to the grid, to regard the threat as unlikely. Our planning should be based on imminent asymmetrical threats, and not assume that another 9/11 large-scale attack is years away,” he added.
The Texas Department of Public Safety recently said they believe there is evidence that ISIS plans an attack.
Pry, Gaffney and others have been pushing Congress to protect the electric grid from attacks including terrorists, assaults by U.S. foes like North Korea and even sun spots that can zap unprotected transformers with electromagnetic pulse.
Congress is looking at legislation to protect the grid via the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted atpbedard@washingtonexaminer.com.
I’m not even trying to follow the news anymore because it’s has so little to do with reality, but as far as I can guess, Al Qaeda has become ISIS, and they’re the new reason we’re all supposed to be trembling in our boots.
“Congress is looking at legislation to protect the grid via the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act.”
This translates to “Congress is doing nothing”, unless they were somehow convinced that destroying our infrastructure is presently perfectly legal.
Because there’s absolutely nothing but lies and stupidity coming from our media and government, it’s difficult for me to believe that people are listening to them at all.
I’m with you on this JR. Yesterday it was missing planes and today it’s the power grid. I’m confused about how this ISIS group got so large and powerful in what, eight months? That is a feat to accomplish in that amount of time if it is even real. The only thing I consider real anymore is what I can touch as what I hear and see all seems to be BS.
I know that these guys were created by our government, but don’t underestimate their belief in their Koran. They (with the help of a communist government) could do a lot of damage in our country.
Yes, the media is trying to get us all scared so we will embrace martial law, but if these isis punks are unleashed on our country, they will kill as many as they can and they don’t mind dying for their idiotic beliefs. We, the Patriots, will have to go to war with them. It wont matter at that point who funded them, trained them or equipped them.
Yep. Now they are trying to use ISIS to help scare the people with their electric grid propaganda. Same story, different players. It’s getting old.
Maybe next week it will be the Russians if they have nothing left for their Ukraine propaganda.
I don’t think there are really THAT MANY members in ISIS.
I think they are “puppets” working for some government entity operating right here in the good ol’ U, S, of A who are just itching to get some crisis started and scare the population out of their wits if not out right kill us.
ISIS = AL-CIA-DA
. . .