“I really want an Islamic buyer because they will bomb the Americans.” My latest in FP:
“You can make a dirty bomb, which would be perfect for the Islamic State,” an arms smuggler is quoted as saying to a potential buyer in Moldova in an Associated Press report published Wednesday. “If you have a connection with them, the business will go smoothly.”
Arms smugglers, says the report, are specifically targeting Islamic jihad groups, principally but not solely the Islamic State, to sell them material for bombs – including nuclear material. One explained: “I really want an Islamic buyer because they will bomb the Americans.”
Another seller, a former KGB informant named Teodor Chetrus who had come into the possession of some uranium, “said multiple times that this substance must have a real buyer from the Islamic states to make a dirty bomb.” Chetrus, it seemed, had retained a Cold War-era hatred of the United States, and hoped to aid the jihadis in taking down his old enemy.
Yet another seller who had material that could be used to make a dirty bomb explained to middlemen that he wanted to sell it to the Islamic State: “They have the money and they will know what to do with it.”
The FBI has reportedly foiled four attempts to sell nuclear material to the Islamic State, and there will no doubt be more. Certainly the Islamic State is a willing buyer. Last May, its magazine Dabiq (which is itself named after the northern Syrian town where Islamic prophecy holds that the final military showdown between the Muslims and the non-Muslims will take place) included an article entitled “The Perfect Storm,” purportedly written by the Islamic State’s hostage-cum-propagandist John Cantlie, and predicting that the self-styled caliphate would be a nuclear power within a year.
In the article, Cantlie bragged that the Islamic State had captured “tanks, rocket launchers, missile systems, anti-aircraft systems” from both the United States and Iran, and said that it was now working assiduously to obtain nuclear weapons.
Cantlie sketched out a scenario by which the Islamic State could get nuclear material: “Let me throw a hypothetical operation onto the table. The Islamic State has billions of dollars in the bank, so they call on their wilāyah [province] in Pakistan to purchase a nuclear device through weapons dealers with links to corrupt officials in the region.”
This scenario, Cantlie boasted, was “the sum of all fears for Western intelligence agencies and it’s infinitely more possible today than it was just one year ago. And if not a nuke, what about a few thousand tons of ammonium nitrate explosive? That’s easy enough to make.”
And once it had this material, Cantlie wrote, the Islamic State would be “looking to do something big, something that would make any past operation look like a squirrel shoot, and the more groups that pledge allegiance the more possible it becomes to pull off something truly epic.”
Reminding his readers of the rapid growth of the Islamic State since its declaration of the caliphate on June 29, 2014, Cantlie added: “Remember, all of this has happened in less than a year. How more dangerous will be the lines of communication and supply a year on from today?”
But not to worry: Barack Obama is on the case. White House spokesman Josh Earnest declared: “The United States government is committed to counter the threat of nuclear smuggling, and ensuring that terrorist groups who may seek to acquire these materials are never able to do so. Seizures of nuclear and radioactive materials in Moldova demonstrate the Moldovan government’s commitment to countering these tactics.”
Given Obama’s spectacular success in stopping Iran’s nuclear program, these are words every American can take as ironclad. In the real world, however, the various candidates for President should be making their plan to increase efforts to stop nuclear arms smuggling a centerpiece of their campaigns. That none are doing so is testimony to the impenetrable fog of unreality that envelops both parties’ response to the Islamic State threat.
Unless and until that fog of unreality is dispelled, the likelihood continues to increase that it will one day bring to America a quite different atmospheric phenomenon: a mushroom cloud.

Beagle says
Is it really a “Cold War hatred”? Nearly everyone forgets how US – Russian relations were poisoned when President Clinton pried the Serb’s ancestral homeland of Kosovo from them and gave it to the Albanian Muslims.
Though the Greater Albania movement is centuries old, somehow we were told ‘Greater Serbia’ was akin to a new Nazi threat. Interesting though is which Balkan factions were allied with the actual Nazis. Only the Serbian Orthodox were not I learned.
Many knew we would anger the Russians for generations thanks to our meddling in the Balkans. Now it bears nuclear fruit.
Bezelel says
I don’t think it is from forgetting as it was never really told by the enemedia. More emphasis was on “ethnic cleansing” with no mention of the poor little muslim victims murderous ways.
ElderlyZionist says
Excuse me. Did this article quote a fellow named John Cantlie? John Can’t lie? O’Reilly?
john spielman says
good one (O’ reilly certainly has been a disappointment with his treatment of islam
john spielman says
a dirty bomb would just as likely go off in Moscow as in Washington because there is no Sunni love for Putin since his meddling in Chechnya and his love in with shia Iran
Jay Boo says
Let’s hope they accidentally set it at the Kaaba instead and have to cancel the yearly hajj for the next 500 years.
Angemon says
Yeah – I found out that knowing fully well I’m up s***t creek without a paddle is quite liberating. No more doubts, no more “what if”s or “can he” – he’s not going to do a damn thing about it, period.
Dave J says
There are 1.6 billion Muslims with a burning hatred for all infidels and a devious “Holy” duty to attack them.
There are tens of thousands of uranium mines, enrichment plants, reactors big and small, waste dumps, industrial tools and complete nuclear bombs in the world, including a few hundred already in Muslim and corrupt despotic countries like North Korea.
Chances that the two will come together: 100%.
Nabhnil says
Sooner or later they will get it from Pakis(a)tan. Be sure of that!
Godwin says
Yes, if they can pay enough Petrol $.
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
Since the USSR devolved back into Russia in 1989, thousands of SS-20 warheads and those from pre-SS-20 platforms have been recycled. I doubt they disposed of the retired devices; they’re sitting in storage somewhere, and given the dilapidated condition of the kleptocratic economy there, they might be for sale.
Godwin says
I think CIA, KGB, M5 n Mossad could have done a sting operation to sell ISIS fake nuke bombs.
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
Yet another seller who had material that could be used to make a dirty bomb explained to middlemen that he wanted to sell it to the Islamic State: “They have the money and they will know what to do with it.”
Finally the 9,000 lb pink elephant in the corner of the room has stood up to be noticed. Caliph Ibrahim has the money and he knows what to do with it. He has the money because our ally Turkey transships the oil the Caliph takes from Mosul for a cut of the action. He knows what to do because he’s read the Holy Ko-Ran and understands that it commands him to obliterate Infidels, which is legal to do given that being a non-Moslem is a capital offense. So why not kill a million at a time instead of just a few dozen? He has growth in his business plan, and he means business.
Nuclear weapons and Moslems are inherently incompatible. The two are there, and they are bound to be put together in the Cause of Allah.
cs says
The “Eastern Bloc” beliefs that the buyers will most certainly use it against the Americans, well I don’t think so, London or Paris are more likely to be targeted, and if Putin keeps bombing sunnis…. Well he could be targeted even before the Americans.
Jeremiah says
We could prevent the sale to a buyer if we eliminate the buyer. Perhaps Putin will do it for us? We can keep watching football.
gordon miller says
I deeply regret to say this, but it’s going to take two or three catastrophes on American soil perpetrated by Muslims before we take serious and strong action against them wherever they reside. Even then our so-called president will need strong persuasion by our top military to take the required action as well as a strong outcry from American people.
Isn’t it deplorable that at a time when strong leadership is needed from the administration, we have a weak, cowardly, and feckless person in the White House.
Islam - the religion of Hate says
The Islamic State has billions of dollars in the bank, so they call on their wilāyah [province] in Pakistan to purchase a nuclear device through weapons dealers with links to corrupt officials in the region.”
There’s no such thing as a Pakistani official that is not corrupt. let alone one that isn’t muslin enough to say no to a proposition that might cost him his life !!
Really , it’s only a matter of “when” not “if” it’s going to happen .. there will be some BS up story about how the jihadists slipped in, grabbed the hardware and fled,,, lets hope the US has eyes on this one ..
Turkey is the problem, Turkey a muslim country in NATO, what were they thinking ??? ..
I think Erdogan is burning both ends of this candle ..
Having Putin move the jihadists along is going to end badly for Turkey, where does he think Jihadi killers will run to, they don’t stop being killers when they cross the borders, Basically Erdogan has let IS setup “through Turkey”, refugees one way, jihadists the other, vehicles, supplies & arms in, oil out, and no doubt money through their banking system ..
We keep hearing the Saudi’s etc .. make laws against”privately supplying money to IS” but you can guranttee ,, money is still flowing ..