Daesh and Red Mercury

[Jacob]

For decades, aspiring bomb makers — including ISIS — have desperately tried to get their hands on a lethal substance
called red mercury. There's a reason that they never have.

... namely that red mercury, while described in renaissance alchemical texts, does not in fact exist and does not in fact provide a shortcut to developing nuclear weapons.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/22/magazine/the-doomsday-scam.html?_r=0

[Valmy]

There are advantages to having an enemy with a medieval mindset.

[Martinus]

This is cool. 

[DGuller]

Hopefully no one at ISIS reads New York Times.

[Jacob]

There is so much good stuff in there

Abu Zaid said hot red mercury was sometimes offered for sale in Syria and could be useful for the Islamic State, which has a cadre of former Iraqi officials who would know how to harness its power. But he cautioned that buyers could easily make a grievous mistake. ''It is not only about getting the red mercury,'' he said. ''The very small box needs special equipment to open it, and special reactors to work with it. If you open this box, a radius of eight kilometers around you will be destroyed.''

This was especially dangerous, because hot red mercury could also be harvested from junkyards and seamstress shops. Al-Safi described how this came to pass. To prevent the weapons-grade material from falling into the wrong hands during what he called ''the American occupation'' of the former Soviet Union, he said, Russians safeguarding the stock late in the Cold War cached tiny reservoirs of red mercury in sewing machines and radios bound for export, which were then scattered throughout the Arab world. (Another version of the same tale says that red mercury is hidden in old television sets.)

These rumors have been circulating for years, once driving prices for old sewing machines as high as $50,000 in Saudi Arabia, according to a 2009 Reuters report. Often the most-sought-after machines were the Singer brand — which, considering that Singer was an American manufacturer, did not quite align with the Soviet fable. No matter. Abu Omar also insisted that old sewing machines were a red-mercury source. ''Specific machines,'' he said, ''with a butterfly logo on them.'' He said he knew this from experience because the red mercury used in the jihadists' chlorine experiment in Ras al-Ain had come from his grandmother's machine.

Other people's outlandish conspiracy tales are pretty entertaining.

[DGuller]

 

[The Brain]

 

[crazy canuck]

Wait until they learn Red Mercury is actually the name of Cal's favourite performer.

[mongers]

To be fair to them, this was I think originally a piece of black propaganda from a Soviet intelligence agency in the last years of the Soviet Union, not their fault it developed legs.   

I maybe wrong but I first heard about it in 85-86, maybe earlier. 

Amusing how it still resurfaces, I think the BBC were caught out by it some time this century?

[The Brain]

red mercury, while described in renaissance alchemical texts

I call BS on Muslims having access to these texts.

[Martinus]

red mercury, while described in renaissance alchemical texts

I call BS on Muslims having access to these texts.

Not if they sacked Alamut.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Hopefully no one at ISIS reads New York Times.

Well wikipedia debunks red mercury too. I suspect this is similar to 9/11 truth stuff and things like this, I'm sure some members of ISIS know red mercury is bunk, most have never heard of it, and some buy into it. For people who believe a conspiracy theory, any form of evidence disproving the conspiracy is just more evidence of an organized cover up. "Of course the West wants us to think red mercury is fake."

[lustindarkness]

LULZ

[Razgovory]

Stories about Red Mercury have been floating around for decades.  There was an old tabletop RPG about conspiracies and aliens called Dark Matter (published by the D&D folks), that featured "Red Mercury", where I first heard of it.  When I was first read that Islamic Fundamentalists had tried to acquire it I was a bit stunned.  I had no idea that it was something that people really believed in.  In the game it could be used to make a nuclear bomb but it's primary purpose was a delicacy for species of aliens.

[mongers]

Stories about Red Mercury have been floating around for decades.  There was an old tabletop RPG about conspiracies and aliens called Dark Matter (published by the D&D folks), that featured "Red Mercury", where I first heard of it.  When I was first read that Islamic Fundamentalists had tried to acquire it I was a bit stunned.  I had no idea that it was something that people really believed in.  In the game it could be used to make a nuclear bomb but it's primary purpose was a delicacy for species of aliens.

Our crown prosecution service in part built a criminal case around the plausibility of stories about red mercury.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5173650.stm