IBD:
In the latest edition of its propaganda rag, the Islamic State says it has enough cash to buy a nuclear weapon from Pakistan and smuggle it into the U.S. through Mexico. This is the sum of all fears, and it’s not overblown.
The new issue of “Dabiq,” IS’ English-language webzine, includes a chilling article, “The Perfect Storm,” that claims the group has amassed enough funds to purchase a “nuclear device” from Pakistan.
“The Islamic State has billions of dollars in the bank, so they call on their wilayah (province) in Pakistan to purchase a nuclear device through weapons dealers with links to corrupt officials in the region,” the magazine says. The weapon could be smuggled through drug-running routes from Islamist-controlled Nigeria to Central America to Mexico “and into the U.S.,” it adds.
Far-fetched? Not when you consider that IS has the means to buy nukes or dirty bombs, and the opportunity to smuggle them through our porous borders.
A Rand Corp. study says IS has more than $2 billion in assets from seized oil fields and refineries, kidnap ransoms and taxation. The think tank figures the terror group now controls fields with a production capacity of more than 150,000 barrels a day. It smuggles this oil out in tanker trucks and sells it at steeply discounted rates to buyers in Syria, Turkey, Kurdistan and elsewhere.
Despite falling world oil prices that have slowed IS’ energy revenues to about $2 million a week, the terror group is still raking in more than $1 million a day in extortion and taxes alone. IS has also stolen some $500 million from state-owned banks in Iraq.
This is far more cash than al-Qaida had access to before 9/11. And IS is more ambitious — and fanatical enough to actually detonate a nuke inside a U.S. city.
“ISIS has billions of dollars, and if they plan an attack from over there, it’s going to be 75% successful and larger than 9/11,” warns terror expert Jeffrey Addicott of St. Mary’s University. Indeed, IS’ magazine boasts that IS is “looking to do something big, something that would make any past operation look like a squirrel shoot.”
In March 2011, long before IS announced the creation of its caliphate, we predicted that not only would a caliphate sprout from Barack Obama’s feckless Mideast policies but that a “nuclear caliphate” would emerge.
This should not be surprising by any stretch of the imagination. One of the things we tried to do was to secure Saddam’s large quantities of Russian air-to-air missiles during and after major combat operations. Those missiles used an apple-sized ball of nuclear material to serve as a key part in the proximity detector for that weapon. Our concern, of course, was to secure as many of those missiles and deny terrorists, FRE (dead-enders) and anyone else the materials that could be used to fashion a dirty bomb. By most accounts, we were able to secure and destroy the entire stockpile.
One of the side effects of Obama allowing ISIS to take major cities is the amount of nuclear material they can gather from hospitals, dentists offices, manufacturing and research facilities.
I doubt they would go all the way to the USA when Israel is so close and makes them so angry.
ISIS is making headway in Gaza Strip, even assassinating a high-ranking Hamas official just the other day.
That puts ISIS within range of every Israeli city.
No need to travel very far with the stuff.
Aw, the JV would never be able to get that advanced. Trust in Obama.
@David, #1:
pop·py·cock (noun informal)
nonsense.
synonyms: nonsense, rubbish, claptrap, balderdash, blather, moonshine, garbage; informalrot, tripe, jive, hogwash, baloney, drivel, bilge, bunk, eyewash, piffle, phooey, twaddle; informalbushwa, malarkey, gobbledygook, mumbo jumbo; informal,bunkum, tommyrot
@Greg #4 –
You’re out of your depth here. Russian made air-to-air missiles were a priority item to secure because of the nuclear material. If you believe others were/are wrong about this item, please enlighten us on the assembly and components of Russian air-to-air missiles we found there.
@David:
As always. He once argued with Old Trooper, who was a Ranger Bn Cdr who used to post here, about Tora Bora and how easy it would have been to get OBL. He knew because he “studied” the maps on Google and therefore “knew” the terrain. OT on the other hand was physically on the ground in Tora Bora during the time in question and had first hand knowledge of the terrain and said his men would have been sitting ducks because it was at best slow go terrain in the mountain passages. Who are you going to believe? It’s a waste of time debating people like that. In a real world operation their know-it-all attitudes would get people killed.
@another vet: Come on, give Greg and every other liberal a break here. Even in the highest cabinet positions in this administration they make decisions based on what Comedy Central says, opinion polls show and when the next election is; how can someone that was actually there or knows technical data about the subject argue with that?
@Bill: The DI’s in Basic referred to them as shithouse lawyers and warned of the trouble you would get into listening to them. So, are we to believe David who was actually there more than once and is relating his personal experiences or someone who was a few thousand miles away armchair generalling everything? It’s an insult to David’s service. I wonder if Greg would say it to David’s face.