ISIS have fired rockets containing the choking agent chlorine at Kurdish forces in their latest chemical attack in Iraq.
Iraqi authorities are looking into another suspected chemical attack by ISIS in northwestern Iraq this week.
Daily Express reports:
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Dozens of Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and civilians were treated for nausea and vomiting after homemade rockets, were fired at them in the Sinjar.
The missiles appeared to contain the chemical substance and US-led coalition is helping with the investigation, the Kurdistan Region Security Council said.
It’s believed the substance was chlorine, a choking agent which was first used as a chemical weapon during the First World War.
It is banned under the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention.
The Kurds have previously said they have evidence that ISIS has used chlorine on a number of occasions, as well as mustard gas.
The Security Council said: “If confirmed this will be eighth ISIS weaponised chemical attack against Peshmerga.
“ISIS tactics continue to become more sophisticated.”
Chlorine, used in small doses to keep swimming pools and toilets sanitary, can be extremely toxic in high concentrations.
Chlorine gas can blind victims and cause suffocation as the chemical attacks the lungs.
A Source at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) confirmed this week that laboratory tests had come back positive for sulphur mustard, after about 35 Kurdish fighters became ill on the battlefield last August.
It’s believed the death cult, also known as Daesh, also deployed the deadly chemical weapon mustard gas in Iraq in October 2015.
ISIS already has built up an arsenal of weapons and military vehicles seized from Iraqi forces.
Mustard gas can be inserted into bombs and rockets or sprayed from warplanes and, like chlorine, was first used in large quantities during First World War.
Chemical agents are not believed to have been used in fighting in Iraq since Saddam Hussein’s fall in 2003.
There are no declared stockpiles of mustard gas in the Middle East after Syria vowed to eliminate its chemical weapons programme in 2013.
