Washington, May 23 (IANS): The Islamic State (IS) Sunni radical outfit has projected a scenario in which it launches a nuclear attack on US soil with a weapon purchased from Pakistan.
In the latest edition of Daboq, IS's glossy online, an article, headlined “The perfect storm”, suggested that the terrorist outfit can use the “billions of dollars” in its coffers to buy a nuclear device through “weapons dealers with links to corrupt officials”.
“The Islamic State has billions of dollars in the bank, so they call on their wilayah (branch) in Pakistan to purchase a nuclear device through weapons dealers with links to corrupt officials in the region,” the article attributed to John Cantile, a British journalist kidnapped by the IS in November 2012, stated.
“The weapon is then transported overland until it makes it to Libya, where the mujahidin move it south to Nigeria. Drug shipments from Columbia bound for Europe pass through West Africa, so moving other types of contraband from East to West is just as possible,” the article full of outrageous claims stated.
“The nuke and accompanying mujahidin arrive on the shorelines of South America and are transported through the porous borders of Central America before arriving in Mexico and up to the border with the United States. From there it’s just a quick hop through a smuggling tunnel and hey presto, they’re mingling with another 12 million “illegal” aliens in America with a nuclear bomb in the trunk of their car.”
While admitting that such a scenario was far-fetched, it said that “it’s the sum of all fears for Western intelligence agencies and it’s infinitely more possible today than it was just one year ago”.
If not a nuclear device, it can can use some other device as well.
“And if not a nuke, what about a few thousand tons of ammonium nitrate explosive? That’s easy enough to make.”
The article also claimed that huge “swathes of Pakistan, Nigeria, Libya, Yemen, and the Sinai Peninsula are all now united under the black flag of tawhid, gelled together as one by the Islamic State”.