ISIS Turns to Chemical Weapons As It Loses Ground in Iraq
|
| |
Fiscal Times ^
| February 22, 2015 | BY RIYADH MOHAMMED, The Fiscal Times
A few weeks ago, the US Central Command announced that an air raid had killed an ISIS chemical weapon expert in Mosul. The ISIS operative, Iraqi engineer Mahmoud al-Sabawi, used to work at Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons program before he joined al-Qaeda in Iraq after the 2003 US led invasion. The
idea that ISIS terrorists have access to chemical weapons brings back images of the genocide inflicted on the Kurds by Saddam Hussein in the late 1980’s. The Halabja Massacre killed up to 5,000 and injured between 7,000 and 10,000 more. If ISIS jihadists have a stash of chemical weapons,...
|
|
|
ISIS Chemical Weapons Expert Killed in Iraq Airstrike
|
| |
BuzzFeed ^
| 01/31/2015 | Jim Dalrymple II
An ISIS chemical weapons expert who used to work for Saddam Hussein was killed last weekend during a coalition airstrike. Abu
Malik died Jan. 24 near Mosul, according to a statement released by U.S. Central Command Friday. In the past, Malik had worked at one of Hussein’s chemical weapons facilities. He joined al-Qaeda in 2005, then later became a member of ISIS. According to the statement, his background provided ISIS “with expertise to pursue a chemical weapons capability.” His death should “temporarily degrade and disrupt the terrorist network and diminish ISIL’s ability to potentially produce and use chemical weapons against...
|
|
|
FLASHBACK: ISIS are making and using chemical weapons in Syria and Iraq...
|
| |
DailyMail ^
| September 11, 2015 | Ollie Gillman
ISIS are making and using chemical weapons in Syria and Iraq says US official as horrific pictures of Kurdish soldiers' injuries caused by mustard gas emerge ISIS terrorists are making and using chemical weapons in Syria and Iraq, US officials believe. The
government is aware of at least four occasions in both countries where militants have used mustard gas, according to a US security agent. The news came as horrific images emerged of injuries sustained by Kurdish soldiers exposed to the toxic weapons while battling the barbaric Islamists. The US source told the BBC that the mustard powder added to...
|
|
|
AP: ISIS exploiting power vacuum in Iraq to create chemical, biological, weapons
|
| |
Canada Free Press ^
| 11/19/15 | Robert Laurie
Consequences and legacies. There are few things that strike terror in the heart of the intelligence community like the thought of ISIS with a weapon of mass destruction. To
understand, all you have to do is look at the horrors they’ve wrought with machetes, matches, and gas cans, then picture them with chemical or biological capabilities. The left likes to pretend they’re a bunch of misfits wandering the desert, but according to the AP (and French President Hollande) that’s far from the case. If we don’t stop them now, we may be facing the “worst case scenario.†ISIS has, allegedly,...
|
|
|
Scale of ISIS' weapons production revealed as it loses ground
|
| |
CBS News ^
| Dec 16, 2016
As Iraqi army and allied forces push ISIS militants back from Mosul, their last major stronghold in Iraq, the industrial-scale weapons manufacturing capabilities the group has enjoyed are being revealed. The
Islamic State of Iraq and Syria’s weapons production was highly organized and sophisticated, relying on a “robust and reliable” supply chain from across the border in Turkey, according to a report by the London-based Conflict Armament Research group (CAR).
|
|
|
ISIS Chemical Weapons Expert, Abu Malik, Killed in Iraq Airstrike: U.S. (Saddam's expert)
|
| |
NBC ^
| 1/31/15
An ISIS chemical weapons expert was killed in an airstrike on Saturday near Mosul, Iraq, U.S. Central Command said in a statement on Friday. Abu Malik worked in a chemical weapons production facility under Saddam Hussein before joining al Qaeda in Iraq in 2005, Central Command said. He
then joined ISIS, allowing the terrorist group to make use of his experience in chemical weapons capabilities, according to Central Command. "His death is expected to temporarily degrade and disrupt the terrorist network and diminish ISIL's (ISIS') ability to potentially produce and use chemical weapons against innocent people," the statement said. The...
|
|
|
The WMD Myth In Iraq That Led To The Chemical Weapons Myth In Syria: A Manipulated Chemical Weapons Watchdog Report? A Pretext For Military Action In Syria?
|
| |
Nextrush Free ^
| 1/30/2023 | Nextrush/Self
"Obviously @count18899. That is why he believed in WMD, when I didn't, and supported the Iraq war, when I didn't. No
contest, really. Do you want to add that the wrong brother died (it's all included in the Twitter admission price), or are you quite done for the day?" Peter Hitchens Twitter Post Saturday 1/28/2023 About His Differences With His Brother The Late Christopher Hitchens Over The Notion Of Weapons Of Mass Destruction In Iraq In the aftermath of 9/11 it certainly made sense for the US military to go after Osama bin Laden and is Al-Qaeda Organization in Afghanistan....
|
|
|
Iraq Did Have Old Chemical Weapons
|
| |
Coach is Right ^
| October 18, 2014 | Jim Emerson, staff writer
The New York Times reports that for more than a decade, American forces discovered and in several cases were injured by Chemical Weapons that were hidden or abandoned in Iraq years earlier. These
Unmarked chemical weapons had been intermixed with conventional weapons in order to hide them from weapon inspectors. Not knowing the true nature of the unmarked ordnance made them an additional hazard, both as improvised explosive devices (IED) and for the explosive ordinance devices (EOD), to the personal sent to neutralize them. Secrecy Since the beginning of Iraqi Freedom, allied encounters with chemical weapons were kept secret and...
|
|
|
Veterans Hurt by Chemical Weapons in Iraq Get Apology
|
| |
New York Times ^
| 03/26/2015 | C. J. CHIVERS
The under secretary of the Army on Wednesday apologized for the military’s treatment of American service members exposed to chemical weapons in Iraq, and he announced new steps to provide medical support to those with lingering health effects and to recognize veterans who had been denied awards. Under
Secretary Brad R. Carson acknowledged that the military had not followed its own policies for caring for troops exposed to old and abandoned chemical munitions that had been scattered around Iraq, and he vowed improvement. He also said that the Army had reversed a previous decision and approved a Purple Heart medal...
|
|
|
The Secret U.S. Casualties of Iraq’s Abandoned Chemical Weapons
|
| |
NYTimes ^
| 10/14/14 | C. J. CHIVERS
The United States had gone to war declaring it must destroy an active weapons of mass destruction program. Instead,
American troops gradually found and ultimately suffered from the remnants of long-abandoned programs, built in close collaboration with the West. The New York Times found 17 American service members and seven Iraqi police officers who were exposed to nerve or mustard agents after 2003. American officials said that the actual tally of exposed troops was slightly higher, but that the government’s official count was classified. The secrecy fit a pattern. Since the outset of the war, the scale of the United...
|
|
|
IS chemical weapons expert killed in airstrike in Iraq: US
|
| |
hindustantimes.com ^
| Jan 31, 2015 07:56 IST
A US-led coalition air strike killed a chemical weapons specialist with the Islamic State group in Iraq who once worked for Saddam Hussein, US military officers said on Friday. The air raid carried out last Saturday near Mosul took out Abu Malik, whose training "provided the terrorist group with expertise to pursue
a chemical weapons capability," the military said in a statement. Malik had worked at a chemical weapons production plant under Saddam's regime and later forged an affiliation with al Qaeda in Iraq in 2005, before joining the extremist IS group, according to Central Command. "His death is expected...
|
|
|
Chemical Weapons Found in Iraq Were Not Those Used to Justify Invasion
|
| |
The New American ^
| 15 October 2014 | Warren Mass
U.S. troops and U.S.-trained Iraqi forces uncovered about 5,000 chemical weapons in Iraq between 2004 and 2011 and soldiers were injured by these weapons in six instances. However,
the weapons had not been manufactured during an active, ongoing chemical weapons program, which the Bush administration cited as justification for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.Details of the discovery of these weapons were published by the New York Times on October 14, in a lengthy, 9,000-word report written by former Marine Corps officer and veteran journalist C.J. Chivers.Despite injuries to our troops, the U.S. government withheld information about the discovery of the...
|
|
|
Globe Trot: U.S. airstrikes hit chemical weapons factories in Iraq
|
| |
World Magazine ^
| March 9, 2016 | Mindy Belz
IRAQ: As we reported previously, U.S. special forces captured the head of the Islamic State (ISIS) unit trying to develop chemical weapons in a raid in northern Iraq. Officials have now identified him as Sleiman Daoud al-Afari, who specialized in developing chemical and biological weapons for Saddam Hussein’s Military Industrialization Authority. But
wait, Saddam Hussein didn’t have weapons of mass destruction, remember? •Based on information extracted from Afari, coalition air strikes this week have destroyed two chemical weapons facilities located near Mosul. •We reported since mid-February incidents in which ISIS used chemical weapons against Kurdish forces in northern Iraq, wounding...
|
|
|
Pentagon hid info on thousands of chemical weapons in Iraq for years
|
| |
Hotair ^
| 10/15/2014 | Jazz Shaw
This story is disturbing on multiple levels. It
has been revealed that stockpiles of expired or degraded chemical munitions were discovered in Iraq during the initial years of the war and both American and Iraqi forces were exposed to them in more than twenty instances. This information was never revealed to the public. American troops were exposed to chemical weapons multiple times in the years following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, while the Pentagon kept their discoveries of the expired or degraded weapons secret from investigators, fellow soldiers, and military doctors, according to a published report. The New York...
|
|
|
Russia Loses Vote By Chemical-Weapons Watchdog Over New U.K. Poisoning Probe
|
| |
Radio Free Europe - "With reporting by Sky News, Reuters, AP, AFP, TASS, and Interfax" ^
| April 04, 2018 | None attributed
Russia has lost a vote by the global chemical-weapons watchdog for a new joint investigation, including Russian participation, into a nerve-agent attack in Salisbury, England, against a former Russian spy in England. Moscow, accused by the British government of carrying out the attack, was seeking to be involved in a new investigation
by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) into the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter. Reuters reports that China, Azerbaijan, Sudan, Algeria, and Iran backed the Russian motion at the OPCW's April 4 closed-door meeting, while 17 members abstained.
|
|
|
Report: CIA bought chemical weapons from Iraq to keep them out of terrorists' hands (Bush Adm)
|
| |
haaretz.com ^
| Feb. 16, 2015 | 3:11 PM | Haaretz
New York Times reports that Operation Avarice netted at least 400 Borak rockets, one of the chemical weapons Saddam Hussein produced in 1980s.********************************** The
CIA worked with the U.S. military to purchase Iraqi rockets containing the deadly nerve agent sarin, as part of a secret effort to keep terrorists and militant groups from acquiring old chemical weapons in Iraq, The New York Times reported Sunday. The U.S. military considers the purchase plan – Operation Avarice, which took place in 2005 and 2006 – to be a nonproliferation success, the Times said. It netted at least 400 Borak rockets, one of...
|
|
|
Report: United States kept secret its chemical weapons finds in Iraq
|
| |
CNN.com ^
| October 15, 2014 | Dana Ford
The U.S. government suppressed information about chemical weapons it found in Iraq, and several servicemembers were injured by their exposure to those weapons, The New York Times is reporting. In
an article published late Tuesday, the newspaper says it found 17 American servicemembers and seven Iraqi police officers who were exposed to mustard or nerve agents after 2003. They were reportedly given inadequate care and told not to talk about what happened. "From 2004 to 2011, American and American-trained Iraqi troops repeatedly encountered, and on at least six occasions were wounded by, chemical weapons remaining from years earlier in Saddam...
|
|
|
Pentagon finally admits over 600 Americans exposed to chemical weapons in Iraq
|
| |
Hotair ^
| 11/7/2014 | Noah Rothman
A bombshell New York Times investigation revealed in mid-October that hundreds of American soldiers were exposed to chemical weapons while serving in Iraq. Worse than that, the experiences of these soldiers was covered up by Defense officials during the Bush and Obama eras. Today,
the Pentagon is finally acknowledging that American servicemen and women did suffer exposure to chemical agents while serving in Iraq. “American troops were exposed to chemical weapons multiple times in the years following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, while the Pentagon kept their discoveries of the expired or degraded weapons secret from investigators, fellow soldiers,...
|
|
|
US military hits another Islamic State chemical weapons facility in Iraq
|
| |
The Long War Journal ^
| Sept. 25th, 2016 | Bill Roggio
For the second time this month, the US military targeted an Islamic State chemical weapons facility in northern Iraq. The Islamic State has pursued a chemical weapons program in both Iraq and Syria, which has been targeted by the US since it launched its air campaign in the summer of 2014. On
Sept. 23, US warplanes bombed “an ISIL [Islamic State] chemical weapons factory” near the town of Qayyarah, US Central Command, or CENTCOM, reported. Iraqi forces gained control of Qarrayah and the nearby Qayyarah Airfiled West, or Q-West, from the Islamic State in mid-July. The Qayyarah chemical factory is...
|
|
|
ISIS has Used Chemical Weapons and is still Making Them
|
| |
Coach is Right ^
| February 13, 2016 | Jim Emerson, staff writer
In August of 2012, Barack Obama established a red line against Syria as a warning to not use chemical weapons against rebel forces, including ISIS. When a chemical attack outside Damascus killed more than 1,400 people there was a lot of finger pointing and saber rattling. Obama
did nothing. A year later Syrian President Bashar al Assad voluntary turned over his chemical weapons for destruction. And now, three and a half years after Assad's act, America's top intelligence official confirmed that ISIS has been manufacturing and deploying chemical agents in Iraq and Syria During testimony before the Senate Armed Services...
|
|