Those Chemical Weapons of Mass Destruction
"These materials are not as secure as we had been led to believe and now pose some significant threat to the coalition in Iraq fighting ISIL."
"We know that ISIL have researched the use of chemical weapons in Syria for the last two years and worryingly there are already unconfirmed reports that ISIL has used mustard gas as it pursues its offensive against the Kurds in Kobani."
"They certainly have access to the Al-Qaeda research into chemical weapons and will want to use the legacy weapons in Iraq."
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, former commander, British Army chemical and nuclear weapons protection forces
Smoke billows following an airstrike by US-led coalition
aircraft in Kobani, Syria, during fighting between Syrian Kurds and
militants from Islamic State, on October 14, 2014 as seen from the
outskirts of Suruc, on the Turkey-Syria border. The strategic border
town of Kobani has been beseiged by Islamic State militants since
mid-September forcing more than 200,000 people to flee into Turkey.
Gokhan Sahin/Getty Images"If [ISIS] gained access to the Muthanna bunkers in Fallujah, mustard agent could have been found and used in some capacity in the assault on Kobani."
Joe Cirincione, Paul Walker, disarmament experts
"On at least one occasion, Islamic State forces did employ some form of chemical agent, acquired from somewhere, against the [Syrian Kurdish forces] in Kobani."
Jonathan Spyer, Global Research in International Affairs Centre
The American government, according to a State Department spokesman, was investigating claims that the Islamic State in Iraq and Al-Sham has the capability of making battlefield dirty bombs, as charged by Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former colonel with the British army who specialized in chemical and nuclear weapons deployment. They're investigating claims that ISIS had in fact used chemical weapons.
And The New York Times has revealed that 17 American servicemen and seven Iraqi police officers had been exposed in 2003 to nerve or mustard agents in the field. The American soldiers were instructed at that time to speak no more of their experiences; they just didn't happen. But what did happen was that hundreds of shells full of poison gas now remain stored in areas controlled by the jihadists.
Moreover, stockpiles of shells filled with mustard and sarin gas had never been made secure, were never guarded by the Americans or allied troops during the occupation of Iraq, nor later when Iraqi forces controlled areas north of Baghdad before the Islamic State jihadist groups advanced and took the territory, placing those dangerous weapons within their grasp.
On Wednesday The New York Times reported that two contaminated bunkers containing cyanide components and sarin gas rockets as well as other shells had never been encased in concrete and made safe. Reporting as well that another large bunker where U.S. marines had discovered the presence of mustard shells in 2008 were abandoned and overgrown. "There were just rounds everywhere" reported Corporal Jace Klibenski.
Iraqi officials themselves spoke of an army base near Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit that housed a shipping container "packed with chemical shells." And that army base fell to an ISIS advance during the lightning offensive that gave them the territory when the Iraqi military fled in fear and disarray. Leaving behind not only all their advanced-technology U.S.-supplied weapons and vehicles, but free access to this chemical-weapons-neglected treasury.
A report on the weekend by an Israeli research group noted that ISIS jihadists appeared to have used chemical weapons against their Kurdish opponents. Evidence was cited by the Global Research in International Affairs Centre that ISIS likely captured chemical agents at Muthanna in June, using them in July to kill Kurdish fighters near Kobani with mustard gas or a similar blistering chemical.
After all, whatever was good enough for Saddam Hussein's arsenal in attacking Iraq's Kurds, and was hugely useful to Bashar al Assad -- Baathists both, though the former was Sunni and the latter is Shiite Alawite -- in attacking his Syrian Sunni opponents, surely would be good enough for the Islamic State in Iraq and Al Sham?
Labels: Chemical Weapons, Defence, Iran, Iraq, Islamic State, Kurds, Shiites, Sunnis
posted by Pieface @ Friday, October 17, 2014
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