U.S. believes Islamic State likely used mustard agent in Iraq attack

Islamic State might even have obtained the mustard agent in Iraq, the Journal reported.

She added that as a result of earlier chemical weapons use by the Syrian government, the United States and its partners now have advanced forensic systems to analyze chemical weapons attacks. The WSJ says the weapons must have come from a secret Syrian stash. That intelligence assessment hadn’t been made public.

A Germany Ministry of Defense spokesman told CNN it can not confirm or rule out that there was a chemical attack in the region where German military advisers train peshmerga forces.

An official said mustard gas is “antiquated” and a large quantity of it must be used in order for it to be lethal. She said that if reports of chemical weapons are true, they would further prove that what ISis calls warfare is really “just systematic attacks on civilians who don’t accord to their particularly perverse world view”.

Now U.S. officials are focused on figuring out exactly what happened in the attack, and if mustard gas was used, how the terrorist group obtained it.

Islamic State militants attacked the outskirts of Iraq’s northern oil refinery town of Baiji overnight with auto bombs and clashed with the army and Shi’ite militias in the town’s western districts, the local mayor and security sources said on Friday. The Islamic State may have got access to that bunker and located some intact supplies of mustard gas.

Intelligence officials and chemical-weapons experts have expressed concerns in recent months that some of those banned chemicals could fall into the hands of Islamic State or other extremist groups.

The U.S. believes the militants most likely used either mortar or rocket shells to deliver the chemical agent. However, it is believed that IS has already used chlorine gas in combat.

U.S. officials have also accused the Assad regime of using chlorine gas in attacks against opposition forces, a charge Damascus denies.