The AP is reporting that police in Moldova have detained seven people on a train from Russia suspected of smuggling 200 grams (7 oz.) of Uranium 238 [unlike U-235 isotope used to make atomic bombs], an extremely dangerous radioactive substance used to make dirty bombs.
A dirty bomb is not, in fact, a nuclear device and does not produce a nuclear explosion. Instead, it mixes conventional explosives with radioactive material, to spread contamination. Because it is easier to make it is more likely to become a terrorist weapon to spread widespread panic even without major loss of life.
In of itself this might not seem like a U.S. problem until you take into account several tweets from an alleged freelance ISIS bomb maker named Al-Britani, who previously posted weapons instruction manuals on Twitter, prompting internal response from authorities in the EU and US, claimed in a November tweet that ISIS possessed a dirty bomb made with radioactive material stolen from “Mosul University,” and again on December 6, tweeted that a “radioactive device has entered somewhere in Europe.” Shortly after the threat was posted on December 6, Twitter finally suspended the twitter account.
The Daily Mail confirmed that Iraq’s Ambassador to the UN Mohamed Ali Alhakin told the UN Secretary General in July of this year that ISIS had seized control of nuclear material that could be used in weapons of mass destruction. According to Reuters, “these nuclear materials despite the limited amounts mentioned, can enable terrorists, with the availability of the required expertise, to use it separate or in combination with other materials in its terrorist acts.”
Then there was the laptop found by Abu Ali’s Syrian rebel group earlier this year that contained ISIS files, detailing how to develop biological weapons and how to weaponize the bubonic plague from infected animals. Also included was a 26 page fatwa on usage of weapons of mass destruction, videos of bin Laden, instructions for stealing cars, and lessons on how to use disguises to avoid arrest while traveling, according to Foreign Policy. While nothing on the laptop suggested that Tunisian national Muhammad S. or ISIS had materials to make dirty bombs, it was revealed that Muhammad did attend two universities in Tunisian studying chemistry and physics.
Magnus Ranstorp, research director of the Center for Asymmetric Threat Studies at the Swedish National Defense College said the real difficulty for ISIS in producing these weapons was to actually have a workable distribution system to kill a lot of people, but “to produce quite scary weapons is certainly within ISIS’s capabilities.”
ISIS members are not solely fighting on front lines. They also control substantial parts of Syria and Iraq and the fear is that men like Muhammed could be quietly working behind the front lines, for instance, in the ISIS controlled University of Mosul or in some laboratory in the Syrian city of Raqqa, the group’s de facto capital, to develop chemical or biological weapons.
The longer the caliphate exists, the more likely it is that members with a science background will come up with something horrible. The documents found on the laptop of the Tunisian jihadist, meanwhile, leave no room for doubt about the group’s deadly ambitions.
When Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the current leader of ISIS, walked away from a U.S. detention camp in Iraq in 2009, he had some chilling final words. He said, “I’ll see you guys in New York,” according to Army Col. Kenneth King, then commanding officer of Camp Bucca.
Is it a stretch to expect ISIS to use our southern border to enter the United States? The drug cartels will bring people into the country no matter who they are, as long as the money is right. A 2012 House Committee on Homeland Security report confirmed that in August 2007 former Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell admitted that not only have terrorists used the Southwest border to enter the United States but that they will inevitably continue to do so as long as it is an available possibility. In a July 2012 hearing before the full U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano confirmed that terrorists have crossed the Southwest border with the intent to harm the American people.
Jeh Johnson, the new head of Homeland Security claims there is no credible evidence to suggest that ISIS has crossed our southern border. But should we trust an open border leftist bureaucrat?
When Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah.) revealed that 4 terrorists linked to KWP, a State Department designated terrorist organization, were arrested while attempting to cross our southern border in September, Johnson flatly denied it before he admitted that it was true. When later questioned as to the disposition of the four terrorist, Johnson reportedly said that “two are detained, the two others were released by the judge — uh, not my preference — they were released by the judge and they fled to Canada and they are seeking asylum in Canada.” Does that give you confidence that our government cares?
Allowing unfettered illegal immigration across our southern border gives ISIS the opportunity to destroy us from within as they promised from their Twitter accounts that threaten to infiltrate our political system or kill us outright.
