Islamic State used banned chemical weapon: Kurds

Reuters, ERBIL, Iraq





Iraqi Kurdish authorities on Saturday said they had evidence that the Islamic State group had used chlorine gas as a chemical weapon against Kurdish peshmerga in Iraq in January.

The Security Council of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region said in a statement to reporters that the peshmerga had taken soil and clothing samples after what they describe as an attempted car bombing by an Islamic State fighter on Jan. 23.

It said that lab analysis showed “the samples contained levels of chlorine that suggested the substance was used in weaponized form.”

A Shiite fighter uses a weapon during clashes with Islamic State militants at the village of Bashir, outside of Kirkuk, Iraq, on Saturday. Kurdish peshmerga forces, backed by Shiite militias, have been attacking Islamic State-held towns and villages south and west of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, peshmerga sources said. Photo: Reuters

The Kurdish allegation could not be independently confirmed.

Chlorine is prohibited under the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, which prohibits all use of toxic agents on the battlefield.

Peter Sawczak, spokesman for the Dutch-based Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which administers the international treaty, said: “We have not had a request from Iraq to investigate claims of use of chemical weapons in Iraq, and the OPCW cannot immediately verify the claims.”

Chlorine has been used “systematically” in the civil war in Syria, an OPCW mission found last year. The organization would have to obtain samples to confirm the use of chemical weapons in a member state, it said.

The Kurdish statement said the attempted bombing happened on a highway between Mosul and the Syrian border. A Kurdish security source said that the peshmerga fired a rocket at the car carrying the bomb so there were no casualties, except for the suspected bomber.

About a dozen peshmerga experienced nausea, dizziness or weakness, the source said.

The statement said the analysis was carried out in a EU-certified laboratory after the soil and samples were sent by the Kurdish Regional Government to a “partner nation” in the US-led coalition that is fighting militants in Iraq and Syria.

The White House said in a statement that it could not confirm the claims, but found them “deeply disturbing” and was monitoring the situation “very closely.”

Iraq’s Kurds were the victims of the deadliest chemical attack of modern times when former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein’s air force bombed the town of Halabja in 1988, gassing at least 5,000 people to death.

No international organization has documented the use of chemical weapons on Iraqi territory by the Islamic State group.