ISIS’ use of chemical weapons in Syria confirmed

A number of Mare’a residents said they suffered from asphyxiation after the ISIL terrorists fired shells seemingly containing toxic materials at the town on Saturday, Syria’s official SANA news agency reported.

Islamic State (IS) militants may have used chemical weapons in an attack on a town in northern Syria on Friday.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said it had treated civilians apparently exposed to a chemical agent in Marea, without saying what type or providing overall casualty figures.

At least nine Syrian officers were killed during clashes with the Islamic State (IS) terror group, a media report said.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) confirmed the family arrived at the hospital in Aleppo one hour after the attack, suffering from respiratory difficulties, inflamed skin, red eyes and conjunctivitis.

On Sunday, the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) said in a press release that it had treated over 50 civilians suffering symptoms that indicated chemical exposure. The patients said that a mortar shell hit their home at about 7:30 p.m. on August 21. The protests took place in areas in the coastal provinces of Latakia and Tartous, it said.

Pablo Marco, MSF’s programme manager in Syria said that it was not possible with lab work to at this stage confirm the cause of the symptoms, but that “the patients’ clinical symptoms, the way these symptoms changed over time, and the patients’ testimony about the circumstances of the poisoning all point to exposure to a chemical agent”.

Mustard gas is an asphyxiant that has been banned in war by the UN since 1993.

The Assad government said two years ago that its chemical weapons stockpiles, including mustard gas, had been destroyed under an agreement brokered by the United States and Russian Federation. It came after the U.S. said it believed Islamic State had used mustard agent against Kurdish forces in Iraq last week-the first indication the… Reports of a sulphur mustard attack on Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in Iraq are also being investigated.

In Syria, the jihadist group has fiercely attacked anti-government forces in Marea in an effort to cut off a supply route into the country from Turkey.