The Islamic State (ISIS) is so far incapable of launching nuclear weapons, but the radical Islamic terror group could produce a deadly dirty bomb from such sources as medical waste, former intelligence officer and retired U.S. Army Col. Derek Harvey tells
Newsmax TV.
"I think they're a long ways away from getting enough quantity of nuclear materials for a bomb from pure sources," Harvey said Friday in an interview with J.D. Hayworth on "Newsmax Prime."
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"But my concern is accessing materials from medical waste or something like that. And let's keep in mind that in Iraq and in Syria, they've overrun a lot of facilities that had basic, what you might call capabilities to produce a dirty bomb — getting medical waste, that type of thing that they could reuse.
"So I think that's a concern that one must consider. They have aspirations but I still think they're a long ways away from anything that would be really a threat."
Joining Harvey in the Newsmax interview was former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, who also served as Interim Minister of Interior of Iraq. He said the United States and other nations must remain on their toes against terror.
"We have to remain vigilant, we can't get complacent.... The called-for attacks, if you will, on police, military, government officials … have been going on for the last few years," Kerik said.
"And it's going to increase because they have a communications network through social media that is basically getting better by the day for them.
"So this is something we have to get used to, nobody should be surprised by it, and members of the law enforcement and military community, they've got to be prepared at all times."
He added the landscape of the Middle East has changed considerably since his stint in Iraq as interim minister.
"I don't think you'd recognize it as it was in 2003. I don't think you would recognize Syria today as it was five years ago, six years ago," Kerik said.
"These countries have been decimated by ISIS and al-Qaida and these other radical groups and until they're completely annihilated, this deterioration of these countries is going to continue."
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