October 10-14
A captured document from the Islamic State talks of
plans to seize Iran’s nuclear secrets, unleash a vicious campaign of ethnic cleansing against Shias, and cripple Iran’s caviar and carpet industries.
The document urges all members to plan for war with Iran and lays out a goal of “stripping Iran of all its power.”
It calls for the assassination of Iranian diplomats, businessmen and teachers.
The apparent policy manifesto is believed to have been written by Abdullah Ahmed al-Meshedani, a member of the group’s secretive six-man war cabinet. It isn’t clear, however, whether the document represents a policy adopted by the Islamic State or a proposed policy being urged by Meshedani.
Furthermore, the document is riddled with questionable assumptions and poor, even childish, logic.
The document was seized by Iraqi special forces during a raid in March on the home of one of the Islamic State’s commanders, The Sunday Times reported.
It said western security officials believe the document to be authentic.
Meshedani, whose duties include managing suicide bombers, wrote that the Islamic State aims to get hold of Iranian nuclear secrets with the help of Russia, to whom it would offer access to gasfields it controls in Iraq’s Anbar province. One problem with this line of reasoning is that the last thing Russia wants to see is new powers with atomic weapons.
Meshedani seems to assume that Iran’s nuclear program is run by Moscow. The document said the Kremlin would have to give up “Iran and its nuclear program and hand over its secrets.” For this to happen, it says Russia must first abandon its support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and back the Persian Gulf Arab states against Iran.
This read more like a dream than a policy document. It has largely been ignored in the North American media.
The Times said the document contains 70 different plans, like launching a campaign of ethnic cleansing, which is already underway in areas controlled by the Islamic State where non-Sunnis are being repressed if they are not killed outright.
Among the more bizarre plans is one to undercut Iran’s carpet industry by flooding the market with Afghan-made carpets. Another plan calls for destroying Iran’s caviar industry. The author seems not to understand that overfishing has put an end to the Caspian caviar industry and that carpets from India, Pakistan and especially China have done severe damage to Iran’s carpet industry. Where once caviar and carpets were Iran’s only significant non-oil exports, they are now minor products in economic terms, basic facts seemingly unknown to Meshedani.
The document describes Nazi-style eugenics and vast intelligence gathering operations to consolidate and expand the group’s self-declared Islamic caliphate.
Meshedani also incites followers to kill Iraqi military commanders, Shia officials and Iranian-backed militias fighting for the Iraqi government.
Meshedani also writes that the Islamic State’s intelligence operatives will “eliminate” its own leaders if they deviate from the “desired goal.”
“The leadership of the political wing must know that it is being watched and listened to by the intelligence apparatuses which pass on everything,” he warns.
Meshedani also suggests buying islands from Yemen and the Comoros, in the Indian Ocean, “to establish a military base on the flank of the Arab lands.”
