Free Republic

Washington (AFP) - CIA director John Brennan has said that Islamic State fighters have used chemical weapons and have the capability to MAKE SMALL QUANTITIES of chlorine and mustard gas, CBS News reported. "We have a number of instances where ISIL has used chemical munitions on the battlefield," Brennan told CBS News, which released excerpts of an interview to air in full on the "60 Minutes" news program on Sunday. The network added that he told "60 Minutes" the CIA believes that the IS group has the ability to make small amounts of mustard or chlorine gas for weapons. "There...

Initial tests on mortar fragments from an Aug. 11 Islamic State attack against Kurdish forces in Iraq have tested positive for the chemical weapon mustard gas, the Pentagon said Friday. A few days after the attack near Makhmour, the Kurdish Peshmerga forces brought fragments from the mortar rounds to U.S. forces. Makhmour is just south of Irbil, where the U.S. has one of its training center sites. “We were able to take the fragments and do a field test on those fragments, and they showed the presence of HD, or what is known as sulfur mustard. That is a class...

U.S. intelligence agencies reportedly believe the Islamic State used chemical weapons in Syria on Kurdish forces at least two weeks before the group may have used it in Iraq, U.S. officials said on Friday. The reports are fueling concerns that ISIS has acquired an arsenal of banned chemicals that could escalate fighting in the region. “It could be a pattern,” a senior U.S. official with knowledge of the intelligence told The Wall Street Journal. U.S. agencies have believed that the Islamic State aspired to obtain chemical weapons, such as mustard gas, but officials said it was premature to immediately connect...

The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil) used mustard agent in its fight against a Kurdish militia in Syria, testing has confirmed. Unnamed US government officials involved in investigating alleged chemical weapon use by Isil in the northeastern Syrian city of Hasakeh confirmed mustard gas had been used, according to the Washington Post and CNN. Mustard gas, used during World War One, can cause blisters, blindness and respiratory damage and is an internationally-banned chemical weapon. Last month, members of a Syrian Kurdish militia, the People's Defence Units or YPG, reported that projectiles fired by Isil's jihadists had released...

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,...