I agree. The Shia may not be as battle hardened, but they can be as fanatical and no doubt wiil fight hard if properly lead, or even if not. Major use of gas could have interesting international consequences.
“Major use of gas could have interesting international consequences.”
I initially feared a major chemical assault when I saw that al Muthannna had been captured by the rebels, and that the Ba’athists were back in the fight. After some thought, I think it less likely that they could mount the kind of large scale operations that they have in the past.
I still expect some use of chem warfare by the ISIS/Ba’athists, but probably more like terrorist attacks from vehicles, rather than major artillery bombardments. Maybe bring some into Syria, and try to smuggle some internationally for terror attacks.
The gear is old and likely poorly maintained, and their skills for safely handling and delivering (questionable at their height) are probably much less now. The Russians seem to be on the side of the Shia (Assad) so they are not likely to send covert specialists - it would be up to the old Ba’athist military men to have maintained the skills and equipment and to have secretly nurtured a chem war plan. Relatively low risk that they could pull it off, but very high cost if they could.
If the increased intelligence and surveillance is not tracking al Muthanna and the captured stocks closely, than they would be pretty lame - so a major movement and staging for a big attack would probably draw US airstrikes in a hurry.