Al Qaeda hit by Black Death fear as medieval plague kills 40 terrorists at training camp



Al Qaeda terrorists have been left fearing the Black Death plague after it wiped out at least 40 insurgents at an Algerian training camp, it was reported today.

The horror disease, which killed 25 million people in medieval Europe, is understood to have been found in a militant’s body dumped at a roadside.

Terror group AQLIM (al Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb) was forced to turn its shelter in the Yakouren forests into mass graves and flee, it has been claimed.



Hideout: Terrorists in Ouzou, Algeria, above, have been forced to flee the plague



Now al Qaeda chiefs are said to fear the plague has been passed into other cells - and possibly Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

Many insurgents may choose to surrender for treatment rather than die a horrible death.

‘This is the deadliest weapon yet in the war against terror,’ a security source told The Sun:

‘Most of the terrorists do not have the basic medical supplies needed to treat the disease.

‘It spreads quickly and kills within hours. This will be really worrying al-Qaeda.’

Medieval terror: The Black Death killed 25 million people in Europe in the 1300s



The new plague epidemic is said to have begun in AQLIM’s cave hideouts of in Tizi Ouzou province, 90 miles east of the capital Algiers.

AQLIM is the largest and most powerful al Qaeda group outside the Middle East and trains Muslim fighters to kill British and American troops.

Its boss Abdelmalek Droudkal claims to command around 1,000 insurgents and masterminded the bombing the UN headquarters in Algiers in 2007, killing 41.

Black Death comes in various forms and was one of the deadliest pandemics in human history when it struck in the 1340s killing 75 million people across North Africa, Asia and Europe.

Bubonic Plague is spread by bites from infected rat fleas. Symptoms include painful boils in the groin, neck and armpits.

Quick-spreading: The plague virus, above, is easily caught and kills within hours



In Pneumonic Plague, airborn bacteria spread like flu. Without medication it can be deadly.

Although plague is virtually unheard of in developed countries, the World Health Organisation reports several thousand cases a year.

These occur mainly in southern Asia, southern Africa and central America.

Between 1989 and 2003 there were more than 38,000 cases, which caused 2,845 deaths in 25 countries.