ISIS Feared to Have Used Chemical Weapons

Washington reportedly suggests the jihadists used mustard gas, while the Kurds believe it was chlorine, which is more unsafe.

Mustard gas was initially used by Germany during the First World War where it incapacitated troops and was reported to have left many victims disfigured.

The Islamic State has previously been accused of using chlorine gas in weapons and has enslaved women and slaughtered captives. “They have clearly demonstrated they are a barbaric, inhumane enemy”.

A ministry spokesman had said earlier “there was a chemical weapons attack” near Arbil, the capital of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region.

Erdogan also said Turkey made no distinctions between terror groups, in an apparent response to claims that the government had concentrated efforts on battling the PKK, shifting away from ISIS. A feature in The New York Times quoted a 12-year-old Iraqi Yazidi girl who claimed an Islamic State group fighter told her before raping her that the assault brought him “closer to God”.

Precursors are chemicals involved in production stages for toxic chemicals, according to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

The Kurds are vital military allies, and President Obama has expected them to do the lion’s share of the front-line fighting against ISIS, with minimal support, while the Iraqi units lavishly supported by America broke and ran, often leaving caches of U.S. equipment behind for the terrorists to seize. “It doesn’t surprise me”.

Numerous villages neighboring Makhmour, some only 5km away, have been under ISIS control since August last year when the group swept through much of western Iraq.

It’s also possible that ISIS picked up the weapons from leftover stockpiles in Iraq, which were formerly owned by Saddam Hussein. The other WMD bunker included “2,000 empty 155mm artillery shells contaminated with the chemical warfare agent mustard, 605 one-tonne mustard containers with residues, and heavily contaminated construction material”.

Some believe ISIS’ chemical weapons were probably taken from the Syrian weapons stockpiles of Bashar Assad. But it remains unclear exactly where the group may have obtained such weapons from.

The White House’s National Security Council said it was aware of the reports and was seeking more information.

We want to warn viewer the images you’re about to see following an attack in Syria are graphic.

Pentagon officers consider ISIS used chemical weapons against Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in northern Iraq Wednesday., Fox News source has discovered. But it has overrun numerous Syrian military facilities, whose contents are still unknown to its Western opponents.