A manifesto supposedly penned by a senior Islamic State radical has revealed the group's outlandish plans to bribe Russian President Vladimir Putin in return for secrets about Iran's nuclear program, a news report said Monday.
The document, purportedly obtained during a raid by Iraqi forces on a senior IS commander's house, details how the group had planned to give Russia access to IS-controlled oil fields in Iraq in return for Moscow dropping its support of Iran and handing over knowledge of that country's nuclear program, British newspaper The Sunday Times reported.
Moscow would also have to abandon its support for Syrian President Bashar Assad and back the Gulf states against Iran as part of the deal, the report said.
With 70 proposals in total, the manifesto is believed to have been penned by Abdullah Ahmed al-Meshedani, a member of the group's six-man war cabinet. It is currently being checked by Western security officials, but is thought to be genuine.
Some of the more bizarre suggestions in the text include a plan to destroy Iran's caviar industry "because it is a national treasure," as well as a plot to sabotage Iran's carpet industry by encouraging Afghan carpet makers to flood the Middle Eastern market, the report said.
Apart from such far-fetched scenarios, however, the manifesto also lays bare the serious threat posed by IS, a sophisticated group that has gained a reputation for brutality following the beheadings of several Westerners — including British aid workers Alan Henning and David Haines.
Calls for a campaign of ethnic cleansing, a eugenics program and intelligence-gathering operations to consolidate the Islamic State are all included in the manifesto, according to The Sunday Times.
Meanwhile, the unusual proposal to work with Putin against Iran comes just a month after Islamic State militants had personally threatened the Russian president, saying they would bring war to Russia's restive North Caucasus region.
"We will, with the consent of Allah, free Chechnya and all of the Caucasus! The Islamic State is here and will stay here," a group of Syrian IS members called out to Putin in a YouTube video posted in early September.
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