Islamic State working on chemical weapons, say USA, Iraqi officials

Abaaoud’s case suggests that the Islamic State, which has previously focused on inspiring “lone wolves” to launch attacks in Western nations, now appears to be dispatching “external operations” men such as Abaaoud to oversee the plots abroad-a tactic that has been used by al Qaeda. They also are called IS and ISIL. But overall the candidates and the president are talking about doing basically the same three things to fight the Islamic State: airstrikes, bolstering local forces, getting the world on the same page.

Iraqi security forces and Kurdish Peshmerga in northern Iraq have been fighting ISIS on the ground. Iraq’s Sunni Arabs, for example, need to rise up and reclaim what IS has taken from them, Carter said. That fundamentalism is in response to a liberal way of life in the West, they say.

They were founded in 2004 and grew from an Al-Qaeda linked group but it is thought the two groups have since distanced themselves from each other.

Last week, it claimed responsibility for two explosions in the Lebanese capital, Beirut. Instead, 11/13, became France’s 9/11 as gunmen and suicide bombers methodically and randomly slaughtered more than 130 citizens at four locations around the city, wounding hundreds more. A militant leader from Jordan named Abu Musab al-Zarqawi joined the terrorist group al-Qaida.

It split with al-Qaida after al-Zarqawi’s death.

Bretton-Gordon, who advised British security forces in Baghdad earlier this year, told the London Daily Mirror that a chlorine gas attack in the United Kingdom was “highly likely”. Other members of Islamic State come from the political party that supported Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. He was ousted and later executed.

“The Islamic State can be degraded by air power, but in the end someone has to provide the infantry that goes in and takes Mosul and Raqqa and restores governance and rule of law, and I don’t see anyone offering that”.

Moreover, a full-on bombing campaign could make major cities in Iraq and Syria unlivable for the civilian population, further destabilizing the situation on the ground.

In June 2014 the group announced it would be known as Islamic State (IS) and declared itself a caliphate. All weekend, commentators had mocked his recent declaration that the Islamic State was “contained”. Muslims and others have objected to the use of this name, saying that the group is neither legitimately Islamic nor a legitimate state. It also receives money from supporters in a few Persian Gulf nations.

However, he said it is not thought Islamic State has the ability to manufacture chemical or biological weapons outside of Iraq or Syria and we should not be “overly panicked” about the threat to targets in Europe and the UK. It says they illegally transported it to Turkey and Iran, or sold it to the Syrian government.

Retired Lt. Gen. Richard Zahner, a top American military intelligence officer in Iraq in 2005 and 2006, said the United States has, in the past, underestimated ISIS and that the threat of their obtaining the deadly weaponry is quite legitimate. For example, on Sunday it used A-10 attack planes and AC-130 gunships to destroy 116 tanker trucks in eastern Syria as they lined up near an oil facility in the open desert. “We know that there could also be a risk of chemical or biological weapons”. He proposes that the United States lead a coalition of up to 100,000 troops to eliminate the Islamic State and pacify Syria. A few Yazidi women have escaped or were rescued. Kathleen Struck was the editor. The choice for President Obama is not whether we should fight the Islamic State on the ground but whether we want to do so on its home base or ours. Write to us in the Comments section or on our Facebook page.