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Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri The Coordinator 2015 Part 5-10-WMD

The AQ battle space and playing Field.It was Al-Qaeda’s Religious Justification Of Nuclear (WMD) Terrorism

See also 2014 Part 5 and 5-1, --

Biden went on to warn: “Let’s not kid each other. They already have paved a path to a bomb’s worth of material. Iran could get there now if they walked away in two to three months without a deal.” He went on to say:  “Without this deal, they already have enough material if further enriched for as many as eight nuclear bombs. Already, right now, as I speak to you.

ISIS may have potential to 'build chemical weapons', Australia says June 06, 2015 Australia’s foreign minister, Julie Bishop, has voiced concerns over an alleged possibility of the Islamic State group to build chemical weapons. There have been several reports of ISIS using toxic chlorine gas in homemade bombs in Iraq and Syria.

Saudi Arabia's Deputy Minister for Religious Affairs and Dawah Abdul Aziz Al-Ammar has said that Pakistan's nuclear bomb is not of Pakistan alone but belongs to the entire Islamic world.

The Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL), in the latest edition of its propaganda magazine, indicated that it could purchase a nuclear weapon in Pakistan, take it to Nigeria, and then smuggle it into the U.S. through Mexico by using existing trafficking networks in Latin America.

In March, Gen. John Kelly, commander of U.S. Southern Command (Southcom), warned that Islamic terrorist groups such as ISIS could exploit the capabilities and knowledge of Latin American smuggling networks to infiltrate the U.S. through Mexico and possibly bring in weapons of mass destruction.

June 5, 2015 Special Dispatch No.6066 Saudi Arabia's Religious Affairs Minister Abdul Aziz Al-Ammar: 'Pakistan's Atomic Bomb Belongs To The World Of Islam'; '[Yemen's Houthi] Rebels And Their Patrons Are Dreaming Of Occupying Haramain Sharifain [Mecca And Medina]'

A snapshot of the Urdu website report

On a visit of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia's Deputy Minister for Religious Affairs and Dawah Abdul Aziz Al-Ammar has said that Pakistan's nuclear bomb is not of Pakistan alone but belongs to the entire Islamic world. The Saudi minister's statement came in the wake of a resolution adopted by the Pakistani parliament that called for a neutral Pakistani stance on the Yemen conflict.

Al-Ammar, who is visiting Pakistan to clarify the Saudi standpoint on the Yemen conflict, stated at a meeting in Karachi that "Pakistan is our friend-country. We hope that at this stage cooperation will be done with us [in Yemen]. He said that Pakistan's atom [bomb] is not of Pakistan alone but is of the world of Islam. The entire world of Islam is proud of it…" "We are proud of Pakistan's atomic program," said the Saudi minister, according to an April 17 report – titled "Pakistan's atomic bomb belongs to the world of Islam: Saudi minister" and

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published by an Urdu-language website. Speaking about the Iranian role in Yemen, Al-Ammar said: "We have verified evidence that Iran is providing all support to the [Houthi] rebels, and Iran is behind the rebellion. We will not permit anyone to interfere in the Arabian Peninsula." He added: "We have the proof that the Houthi rebels have acted with Iranian support and Iranian weapons." According to the Urdu website, the Saudi minister said that "the rebels and their patrons are dreaming of occupying Haramain Sharifain [the holy cities of Mecca and Medina] following the Yemen invasion." He added: "We have a brotherly, friendly [relationship] with Pakistan, to the point of being one heart, two souls. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are mates in every difficulty." The Saudi minister stated: "We hope that at this difficult time, Pakistan's people and [military] institutions will support us." Abdul Aziz Al-Ammar made the comments on April 16 at the residence of the Saudi Consul General in Karachi. Numerous Pakistani religious scholars and provincial ministers of Sindh of which Karachi is the capital were present on the occasion. Among those present on the occasion were: Mufti Muhammad Rafi Usmani, the Mufti-e-Azam (or Great Mufti) of Pakistan; Sahabzada Abul Khair Muhammad Zubair, leader of Jamiat Ulama-e-Pakistan (Noorani); Dr. Abdur Razzaq Sikandar, emir of Alami Majlis Tahaffuz-e-Khatm-e-Nabuwwat; Mufti Muhammad Naeem, chairman of the Tahaffuz-e-Haramain Sharifain; Sindh minister Ali Nawaz Mehr, and others. Source: Javedch.com (Pakistan), April 17, 2015

ISIS may have potential to 'build chemical weapons', Australia says June 06, 2015 Australia’s foreign minister, Julie Bishop, has voiced concerns over an alleged possibility of the Islamic State group to build chemical weapons. There have been several reports of ISIS using toxic chlorine gas in homemade bombs in Iraq and Syria. “The use of chlorine by Daesh [an Arabic term for ISIS], and its recruitment of highly technically trained professionals, including from the west, have revealed far more serious efforts in chemical weapons development,” Bishop said late on Friday in Perth. “Daesh is likely to have amongst its tens of thousands of recruits the technical expertise necessary to further refine precursor materials and build chemical weapons,” she said. Chlorine gas is a strong oxidizer, which may react with flammable materials. The toxic gas, which was first used as a weapon during WWI by Germany, is on the banned list of chemicals under the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention. Kurdish officials said its peshmerga fighters, busy reinforcing their positions on a highway between Mosul and the Syrian border, came under attack from an IS suicide bomber driving a truck filled with toxic chlorine gas late January. Authorities say their forces destroyed the truck with a rocket before it had a chance to detonate near soldiers. Shortly after the attack, the Kurdish fighters began to complain of “nausea, vomiting, dizziness and weakness” – all common symptoms of chlorine poisoning. Soon they found “20 empty canisters” in the back of the attacker's vehicle. The Kurds, who have been battling against Islamic State militants since last year, sent the remains of the suicide bomber to a laboratory, which said “the samples contained levels of chlorine that suggested the substance was used in weaponized form.” The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the chemical weapons watchdog, conducted a fact-finding mission in neighboring Syria last year, where ISIS has been fighting against the Bashar Assad government. According to the OPCW probe, chlorine was used “systematically and repeatedly” in Syria in 2014. The report stated that chlorine was used in attacks on the villages of Talmanes, Al Tamanah and Kafr Zeta, all located in northern Syria. OPCW said that “the descriptions, physical properties, behaviour of the gas, and signs and symptoms resulting from exposure, as well as the response of patients to the treatment leads” lead it conclude with a high degree of confidence that “chlorine, either pure or in mixture, is the toxic chemical in question.” Last year, 11 Iraqi police officers were taken to hospital after an

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ISIS chemical weapons attack, with the Defense Ministry and doctors later confirming their diagnosis was poisoning by chlorine gas. According to a Washington Post report, the Islamic State militants’ chlorine gas attack occurred on September 15, in the town of Duluiyah, located north of the capital.

While we think rebels are stupid and complex weapons need trained manning Saudi Arabia 'downs Scud missile fired by Yemen rebels' Jeddah says it shot down missile fired into kingdom just hours after it repelled a major rebel attack on Jizan province. 06 Jun 2015 11:01 GMT  Saudi Arabia has said it has shot down a Scud missile fired into the kingdom by Houthi rebels and forces allied to the former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh. "At 2:45am on Saturday morning, the Houthi militias and ousted [president] Ali Abdullah Saleh launched a Scud missile in the direction of Khamees al-Mushait, and praise be to God, the Royal Saudi air defences blocked it with a Patriot missile," a statement by the leadership of the Saudi-led joint Arab military coalition said.    The statement came just hours after Saudi Arabia said its army had repelled an offensive by Saleh forces backed by Houthis fighters on its Jizan province, which borders Yemen, according to state media. Dozens of armed men, believed to belong to Republican Guard units loyal to Saleh, died in Friday's attack, which the Saudi security sources said was the biggest since the conflict in Yemen began.

The Saudi armed forces said in a statement that four of their soldiers had died of injuries sustained during the attack. "The Armed Forces repelled the offence which was aiming to penetrate the border, in an attempt to achieve, ... a moral victory to compensate the casualties among the aggressors' ranks," the Saudi statement said. Friday's fighting is believed to have started when units of soldiers loyal to Saleh and Houthi fighters tried to infiltrate the border at Al Khouba. The rebels launched a number of rockets at Saudi military positions, before the Saudi army retaliated with artillery shelling and air support from Apache helicopter gunships.Houthi reinforcements on the Yemeni side of the border were also targeted during the retaliation. The rebel-aligned Al Masirah TV aired video purporting to show fighters moving towards Saudi watchtowers and firing rockets. Friday's developments came a day after the Houthis agreed to join UN-backed peace talks in Geneva planned for June 14. Elsewhere, the coalition on Friday carried out air strikes in the capital, Sanaa, and Ibb city, targeting positions of the Houthis and its allies. Rebel military positions were also hit in Dhi Naem district in Al-Bayda province and Ataq city in Shabwa province. A coalition of Arab states has been bombing Houthi forces for more than two months in an attempt to restore President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who has fled to Saudi Arabia.About 2,000 people have been killed and half a million displaced by the fighting.Earlier, there were violent clashes in the southern port city of Aden between Houthi rebels and soldiers loyal to Hadi. Fighting also broke out in the city of Taiz, with popular resistance committee forces battling Houthi militias. The fighters reportedly blew up a home in the city where Houthi fighters had been gathering. Reports of ISIS militants using chlorine gas on the battlefield appeared after the jihadists seized a large former Iraqi chemical weapons production plant last June. Iraq’s UN Ambassador Mohamed Ali Alhakim said that “armed terrorist groups” took over the Muthanna complex on June 11. The plant harbored 2,500 degraded chemical rockets, formerly filled with a weapon of mass destruction, sarin, and other chemical agents. The Iraqi government told the UN that as a result of the takeover of the plant, Iraq was unable to fulfil its obligations to destroy chemical weapons. Alhakim’s letter to the UN mentioned two specific bunkers, whose contents came to be revealed by the AP via a 2003-era UN report. While in Bunker 13, there were 2,500 sarin-filled chemical rockets – all produced before 1991 – and 180 tons of the “very toxic chemical” sodium cyanide,

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Bunker 41 contained 2,000 empty artillery shells that were contaminated with mustard gas; over 600 one-ton mustard containers holding residue, and severely contaminated construction material. These could not be used for warfare, but they were still “highly toxic.” US officials has said that whatever was still in the compound had become largely ineffective, however. "Should they [terrorists] even be able to access the materials, frankly, it would likely be more of a threat to them than anyone else," US Defense Department spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby told Reuters last July.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters May 22) – A month-long review conference on the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty ended in failure on Friday after its members were unable to overcome disagreements on an atomic weapons ban for the Middle East, which the United States blamed on Egypt. After four weeks of negotiations at the United Nations on ways to improve compliance with the pact, there was no consensus among its 191 signatories. U.S. Under Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller announced there was “no agreement” and accused some countries of undermining the negotiations. Gottemoeller did not say which nations had tried to “cynically manipulate” the conference, though she accused Egypt and other Arab states of bringing “unrealistic and unworkable conditions” to the negotiations. A senior Western diplomat was more blunt: “Egypt wrecked the conference. ... Egypt overshot the runway and has prevented the region from moving closer to a region free of (weapons of mass destruction).” Egypt denied trying to wreck the conference.

Obama turns a smiling face to Israel. Biden: Iran has enough material for 8 nuclear bombsDEBKAfile Exclusive Report May 2, 2015 President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have gone out of their way in the last fortnight to shower friendly gestures on Israel, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and even Ambassador to Washington, Ron Dermer. Refuting the dire predictions by Netanyahu’s critics of a disastrous breach, Obama and Biden, by word and gesture, are putting behind them the rancor long marring relations between Washington in Jerusalem. The White House launched its new charm campaign for Israel on April 13 by meetings with three groups of American Jewish leaders. Obama addressed the first with an emotional affirmation of his support for Israel and its security. Vice President Biden, National Security adviser Susan Rice and Biden’s national security adviser Colin Kahl then talked to another group of Jewish leaders, while Obama spoke to Jewish “community leaders”, a group of individuals who though unaffiliated are influential and generous donors to the Democratic Party. Ten days later, on April 23, Biden was the keynote speaker at the Israeli embassy’s Independence Day reception. He stood alongside the former object of administration ire – Ambassador Dermer - and declared: “We have Israel’s back, you can count on that.” He announced that Israel would be the first country in the world to receive the new US F-35 stealth aircraft already next year.

Thursday, the Vice President delivered a lecture at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the key DC research think tank on the subject of US-Israel relations. In this important lecture, Biden defended in great detail US strategy and objectives in the negotiations for a nuclear accord with Iran, as they enter their final lap.All in all, the US president and vice president are devoting more time to gestures for repairing relations with Israel than on the burning crises afflicting the world in Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Ukraine.DEBKAfile found four reasons for this striking White House pivot:1. After the fireworks sparked by Netanyahu’s March 3 speech to the US Congress against the nuclear accord, which placed him at the forefront of the international front opposing the deal, the White House decided that instead of sparring with him, it would be more productive to

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convert the Israeli prime minister into a supporter by meeting him halfway on certain points.2. The rift with Israel proved disadvantageous to the Obama administration, while boosting Netanyahu and his Likud in Israel’s recent general election. The US president has paid a high political and personal price for colliding with Congress on the Iranian nuclear issue. His strategic advisers have recommended a bid to convince Netanyahu that Israel’s most pressing concerns about the nuclear deal are being addressed in the final stage of the talks. Assuming that the prime minister too is not looking for a major rift with Washington, he may be amenable to partly changing course and withdrawing some of his objections to the deal. Congress might then respond more positively to the administration’s nuclear policy.4. As American gears up for its 2016 elections, the Democratic Party needs to woo the Jewish vote and most importantly its financial support for campaigners.The Biden lecture to the Washington Institute is therefore worthy of close scrutiny. This masterly and eloquent work is an attempt to lay the political and security groundwork for Prime Minister Netanyahu’s consent to a change of heart from opposition to the nuclear deal to its support.DEBKAfile has therefore singled out is 17 high points:

Israel is absolutely right to be worried about the world’s most dangerous weapons falling in the hands of a nation, whose leaders dream openly of a world without Israel.

So the criticism that Israel is too concerned I find preposterous.  They have reason to be concerned. (DF. Netanyahu’s concerns about Iran are fully justified.)

…that’s why the President, President Obama, decided for the first time -- people forget this -- to make it an explicit, declared policy of the United States of America - no such policy existed before President Obama uttered it -- that all instruments of American power to prevent — not contain, not contain -— to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran would be used to prevent that from happening.

…our military had the capacity and the capability to execute the mission, if it was required. (DF. This was an explicit US presidential pledge to use military force to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran.)

Vice President Biden then laid down 12 conditions as the sine qua non for a deal. “If what’s on the table doesn’t meet the President’s requirements, there will be no deal,” he said.

A final deal must effectively cut off Iran’s uranium, plutonium and covert pathways to the bomb.

The final deal must ensure a breakout timeline of at least one year for at least a decade or more.

A final deal must include phased sanction relief, calibrated against Iran taking meaningful steps to constrain their program. (DF. Iran insists on immediate sanctions relief.)

A final deal must provide verifiable assurances to ensure Iran’s program is exclusively peaceful.

If they did try to cheat… they would be far more likely to be caught because… we’ll also put in place the toughest transparency and verification requirements.

Iran will be required to implement the Additional Protocols, allowing IAEA inspectors to visit not only declared nuclear facilities, but undeclared sites where suspicious, clandestine work is suspected and address IAEA concerns about the military dimensions of past nuclear research.Not only would Iran be required to allow 24/7 eyes on the nuclear sites you’ve heard of — Fordow and Natantz and Arak -- and the ability to challenge suspect locations, every link in their nuclear supply chain will be under surveillance.

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And if Iran resumes its pursuit of nuclear weapons, no option available today will be off the table. In fact, the options will be greatly increased because we will know so much more.

Biden went on to warn: “Let’s not kid each other. They already have paved a path to a bomb’s worth of material. Iran could get there now if they walked away in two to three months without a deal.” He went on to say:  “Without this deal, they already have enough material if further enriched for as many as eight nuclear bombs. Already, right now, as I speak to you.

Under the proposed final deal, the Arak reactor will be redesigned to produce zero weapons-grade plutonium. The spent fuel will be required to be shipped out of Iran for the life of the reactor. And Iran will be barred from building the reprocessing plant for extracting bomb-grade material from plutonium.

“Finally there is the myth that a nuclear deal between the United States and Iran enables Iran to gain dominance inside the Middle East.” The US vice president protested: “But it is a nuclear bargain between Britain, France, Russia, China, Germany, the EU, America and Iran – one that reduces the risk of nuclear war and makes the region and the world a safer place,” he stressed. “We are working continually to develop the means and capacity to counter Iran’s destabilizing activities…“ he said citing the Strait of Hormuz. We are prepared to use (inaudible) the force.” Biden wound up his peroration by directing these words to Israel. “It’s true we disagree sometimes. But as I said last week at Israel’s Independence Day celebration, we’re family. I think it was Ambassador Dermer who essentially said the same thing. We drive each other nuts. But we love each other. And most of all we protect each other.”

DEBKAfile’s Washington sources note: The Obama administration appears willing to keep on smiling towards Israel. US Secretary of State John Kerry will soon schedule a visit to Israel, after staying away for a long time, The visit will be billed as promoting Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, but his real errand will be to test the ground with Prime Minister Netanyahu and assess how successful the White House’s gestures of affection have been in toning down his opposition to the nuclear deal. For now, the host of critics who accused Netanyahu of causing an irreparable breach with Washington over the nuclear issue have retired to a corner.

India warns ISIS could get nukes from PakistanPublished time: May 31, 2015 16:17 Get short URL

India is concerned that Islamic State militants (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) could get their hands on a nuclear weapon from its regional foe and fellow nuclear power Pakistan.Indian Defense Minister Rao Inderjit voiced the concerns at the sidelines of the Shangri-La regional security conference in Singapore on Saturday. "With the rise of ISIS in West Asia, one is afraid to an extent that perhaps they might get access to a nuclear arsenal from states like Pakistan,” he said, as cited by Bloomberg. Earlier this month, IS said in its propaganda magazine Dabiq it could obtain a nuke from “states like Pakistan.” "The Islamic State has billions of dollars in the bank, so they call on their wilāyah [official] in Pakistan to purchase a nuclear device through weapons dealers with links to corrupt officials in the region," the article read. Although even the article says the scenario is “far-fetched” and political analysts regard the possibility as unlikely. Pakistan as well as India rank poorly in terms of nuclear security. According to the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) nuclear materials security index, out of 25 countries Pakistan comes 22nd while India is 23rd. Terrorism, the majority driven by Islamic extremism, has killed

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more than 55,000 people in Pakistan since 2001, which has given rise to concerns about the security of its nuclear arsenal. Pakistan is also one of the few countries that is increasing its nuclear arsenal. US think tank the Council on Foreign Relations believes it has 100-120 warheads compared to India’s 90-100 and is developing a nuclear submarine capable of carrying nuclear missiles. The Pakistani nuclear program began in the early 1970s in response to India developing its own atomic weapons, and in 1998 they successfully tested five nuclear devices becoming the seventh nuclear power in the world.

Remember: Nukes within a year? ISIS magazine boasts they can be bought in PakistanRT Published time: May 22, 2015

Should the need arise, Islamic State (formerly ISIS/ISIL) could buy a nuclear weapon in Pakistan within 12 months, the group's in-house magazine boasts in an article attributed to hostage journalist John Cantlie. The article talks about a "hypothetical operation" in which the Islamic State uses its "billions of dollars" to buy a nuclear device in Pakistan "through weapons dealers with links to corrupt officials in the region." The weapon could then be transported through Libya and Nigeria. The article suggests that "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 device would land on the south shores of South America and make its way to Mexico, from where "it’s just a quick hop through a smuggling tunnel" to the US. The chilling conclusion is that in the end, "they’re mingling with another 12 million 'illegal' aliens in America with a nuclear bomb in the trunk of their car." The author admits this is a "far-fetched" scenario, but goes on to say it is far more possible now than it was a year ago. Islamic State, he says, "will be looking to do something big, something that would make any past operation look like a squirrel shoot." Something of the scale could be made possible, according to the article, by an unprecedented condensation of various extreme Islamist groups under the terror organization’s wing. The article mentions militant groups such as Boko Haram, which recently pledged allegiance to Islamic State. It says there are many Boko followers across the Middle East given confidence by the territorial gains made by the ISIS terrorists: "Nothing on this scale has happened this big or this quick before. Huge swathes of Pakistan, Nigeria, Libya, Yemen and the Sinai Peninsula are all now united under the black flag." The estimates as to the number of ISIS fighters across the territories it control vary greatly. The total number in Iraq and Syria range from about 30,000, according to CIA

estimates, to up to 70,000 according to the Russian military, to as many as 200,000, according to a November statement by a Kurdish leader.

Biden went on to warn: “Let’s not kid each other. They already have paved a path to a bomb’s worth of material. Iran could get there now if they walked away in two to three months without a deal.” He went on to say:  “Without this deal, they already have enough material if further enriched for as many as eight nuclear bombs. Already, right now, as I

speak to you.

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AP Photo by Edwin Mora3 Jun 2015Washington, D.C. 2209

The Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL), in the latest edition of its propaganda magazine, indicated that it could purchase a nuclear weapon in Pakistan, take it to Nigeria, and then smuggle it into the U.S. through Mexico by using existing trafficking networks in Latin America. In an op-ed article published in the ninth edition of ISIS’ Dabiq magazine released in late May, the jihadist group claims it could transport a nuclear device in the same way illicit drugs are smuggled into Europe through West Africa, adding that Boko Haram’s presence in Nigeria could facilitate the transaction.

The Nigeria-based Islamic terrorist group, Boko Haram, pledged allegiance to ISIS in March. In March, Gen. John Kelly, commander of U.S. Southern Command (Southcom), warned that Islamic terrorist groups such as ISIS could exploit the capabilities and knowledge of Latin American smuggling networks to infiltrate the U.S. through Mexico and possibly bring in weapons of mass destruction. The general, in October 2014, acknowledged that illegal drugs from South America move “through West Africa, up the Maghreb and into Western Europe,” adding that ISIS enemy al Qaeda and its affiliates take “a lot of money to allow it to flow.”

According to the alleged author of the Dabiq op-ed article, kidnapped British photojournalist John Cantlie, ISIS could smuggle a nuke into the U.S. by using the same route and reversing the flow— moving the nuke from West Africa into South America, from where it could be transported into the United States through Mexico. “Let me throw a hypothetical operation onto the table,” Cantlie wrote in the article entitled “The Perfect Storm.” “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.” He addded: The weapon is then transported over land until it makes it to Libya, where the mujāhidīn [fighters] 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 nuke and accompanying mujāhidīn 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,” he also wrote. If not a nuke, ISIS could easily smuggle in “a few thousand tons of ammonium nitrate explosive” that is easy to manufacture, said the article. Cantlie wrote that ISIS, which started as a movement in Iraq, has suddenly morphed into a global phenomenon that the West and the democratic world as a whole is ill-prepared to handle. He said that Boko Haram controls most of Nigeria, home to “an exhausted and smashed national army that is now in a virtual state of collapse”. While testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee in March, Gen. Kelly noted, “Last year, ISIS adherents posted discussions on social media calling for the infiltration of the U.S. southern border. Thankfully, we have not yet seen evidence of this occurring, but I am deeply concerned that smuggling networks are a vulnerability that terrorists could seek to exploit.”“While there is not yet any indication that the criminal networks involved in human and drug trafficking are interested in supporting the efforts of terrorist groups, these networks could unwittingly, or even wittingly, facilitate the movement of terrorist operatives or weapons of mass destruction toward our borders, potentially undetected and almost completely unrestricted,” he added. The general, speaking at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. in October 2014, warned that Latin American drug cartels were working with jihadist groups in West Africa, namely Sunni group Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and its affiliates. 

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