This past weekend, several media outlets ran a story about how ISIS is seeking a nuclear weapon:
ISIS Claims It Could Buy Its First Nuclear Weapon From Pakistan Within a Year [3]
—International Business Times
ISIS to Smuggle Its First Nuclear Weapon From Pakistan, Mulls Attack on US: Report [4]
—Economic Times
ISIS Boasts It ‘Could Buy First Nuclear Weapon in Less Than 12 Months’ [5]
—Daily Mirror
John Cantlie Claims ‘Infinitely’ Greater Threat of Nuclear Attack on US [6]
—The Telegraph
These “reports” are based entirely on a throwaway line from hostage-cum-ISIS spokesperson [7] John Cantlie in an “op-ed” in the ISIS magazine Dabiq a few days ago. As IBT reported [3]:
“Let me throw a hypothetical operation onto the table,” [Cantile] continues. “The Islamic State has billions of dollars in the bank, so they call on their wilāyah in Pakistan to purchase a nuclear device through weapons dealers with links to corrupt officials in the region.”
It admits that such a scenario is “far-fetched” but warns: “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.”
This “hypothetical operation” was a “far-fetched” scenario—but the meme, naturally, soon spread to popular right-wing media: