Officials confirm presence of sulfur mustard agent collected from terror group’s munition fragments earlier this month
The United States expects the Islamic State terror group to use chemical weapons in its effort to repel advancing Iraqi-led forces on the city of Mosul, the last main Iraqi stronghold held by the group.
US officials told Reuters Tuesday that American forces embedded with Iraqi and Kurdish forces have begun to regularly test fragmented ordinance for chemical agents given the Islamic State’s use of mustard gas in previous fighting, including in a previously undisclosed October 5 incident in which sulfur mustard agent was found on munition fragments. The officials did not specify where this was found.
“Given ISIL’s reprehensible behavior and flagrant disregard for international standards and norms, this event is not surprising,” said one official, speaking on condition of anonymity and using another acronym for the Islamic State.
Of the roughly 5,000 American forces in Iraq, 100 of them are with Iraqi and Kurdish troops making gains in the Mosul offensive, the officials said, adding that they serve as advisers and coordinators. None of them are on the front lines, they said.
Last month, US-led coalition warplanes destroyed a factory near Mosul suspected of being used by IS to make chemical weapons. Observers have repeatedly alleged IS has used chemical weapons, and the Pentagon has confirmed the jihadists have deployed chlorine and sulfur mustard devices.
More than 25,000 Iraqi troops have mobilized for the Mosul fight, a massive operation that’s expected to take weeks, if not months. Kurdish forces known as peshmerga, who captured a handful of villages on the first day of the operation, largely paused to focus on consolidating their gains.
The US military, which is leading a coalition providing air and ground support, said Iraqi forces even looked “ahead of schedule” but senior Western officials warned the battle would take time.
“Mosul will be a difficult fight. There will be advances and there will be setbacks,” US President Barack Obama said, as the Pentagon warned IS was barring civilians from fleeing the city and using them as human shields.
“This will be, I think, a key milestone in what I committed to doing when ISIL first emerged,” Obama said, adding the Mosul operation was “another step toward their ultimate destruction”.
On Tuesday, the second day of the massive operation to retake Mosul, the Iraqi army reached the outskirts of al-Hamdaniyah, a historically Christian town also known as Bakhdida, and Qaraqosh, which was once home to tens of thousands. Iraq’s federal police pushed toward up to the town of al-Houd, still home to hundreds of people.
As reported by The Times of Israel