An ISIS ‘Dirty-Bomb 9/11’ From Across U.S. Border

Radioactive materials are so hazardous that they must 

be heavily secured, as pictured above, but in the hands 

of terrorists they can become an unusually devastating 

weapon. (Jens Bittner/dpa/picture-alliance/Newscom)

There’s been so much worry and analysis regarding post-deal Iran building a modestly sized nuclear weapon, or unpredictable and fanatical North Korea using the nuclear weapons it’s already built, that there is less focus than there should be on an easier form of devastating terrorism against America: radioactive “dirty bombs” that could cause death and panic on a wide scale, especially if used in multiple coordinated attacks.

Link: Iraq is searching for highly dangerous radioactive

material stolen last year over fears it could be 

weaponised by ISIS

Numerous Iraqi government officials tell Reuters they fear that dangerous radioactive material belonging to a Turkish company, which was stored in a U.S oil firm’s facility and stolen last year near the southeastern city of Basra, is in danger of ending up in the hands of the Islamic State, which could use it to make a dirty bomb.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission makes no bones about the value of a dirty bomb to terrorists. “Yes, terrorists have been interested in acquiring radioactive and nuclear material for use in attacks,” the NRC website notes. “For example, in 1995, Chechen extremists threatened to bundle radioactive material with explosives to use against Russia in order to force the Russian military to withdraw from Chechnya.”

Dhiren Barot, arrested in 2004 and currently incarcerated

 for life.

The perpetrators of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks are interested, too. “Since September 11, 2001,” NRC adds, “terrorist arrests and prosecutions overseas have revealed that individuals associated with al-Qaida planned to acquire materials for” a radiological dispersal device — including Indian-born British subject Dhiren Barot, arrested in 2004 and currently incarcerated for life. Barot plotted, among other things, a U.S. homeland attack.

Part of Aftermath of the Boston Bomings

A key fact is that this convicted would-be terrorist’s writings revealed he was interested not so much in killing a large number of Westerners as in causing “injury, fear, terror and chaos.” Another plot involving another British national, Salahuddin Amin, and six others, also had connections to al-Qaida.

Read the rest of this IBD editorial HERE.

If you like what you see, please "Like" us on Facebook either here or here. Please follow us on Twitter here.