Kurdish Official: IS Used Chlorine in 3 Attacks

A Kurdish military official said on Monday he had evidence Islamic State militants have used chlorine as a chemical weapon against peshmerga forces three times in northern Iraq. General Aziz Waisi, who said his forces were exposed to the chemical, said the insurgents had used chlorine in a December attack in the Sinjar area and in two others in January west of Mosul. The two earlier purported chemical weapon assaults reportedly resemble one claimed Saturday by Kurdish officials who say an independent laboratory concluded the militants used chlorine gas against its peshmerga forces in a January 23 truck suicide attack. However, their claims were not immediately verified by international authorities. Iraqi officials and Kurds fighting in Syria have made similar allegations about the militants using the low-grade chemical weapons against them. The Islamic State group, which controls a third of Syria and Iraq in its self-declared caliphate, has not commented on the claims. General Wesi, in charge of a Kurdish special forces brigade, told journalists Monday that authorities declined to immediately discuss the attacks when they happened out of fears of causing a panic. Kurdish officials have offered footage of the aftermath of a December 26 attack, which shows fighters coughing and pouring water over their heads after a suicide truck bombing that authorities say wounded some 60 men. Captain Mohammad Sewdin, who was leading the Kurdish special forces unit targeted in the December attack, told the Associated Press he was temporarily blinded for six hours after the attack and coughed up blood. He and others he said were hospitalized. On Saturday, the Kurdistan Region Security Council offered video and lab results it said proved the Islamic State group used chlorine in a January 23 suicide truck bomb. There has been no independent confirmation of any of the Kurds' claims. Some material for this report came from AP and Reuters.



from Voice of America http://ift.tt/18Sg4vS