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ISIS [also known as Daesh or ISIL] has moved its chemical
weapons operations to densely populated residential areas, and is
testing homemade chlorine and mustard gas on its prisoners, residents of
the Iraqi city of Mosul have claimed.
ISIS is reported to have set up laboratories in built-up
neighborhoods in the heart of its so-called caliphate to avoid being
targeted by coalition air strikes,
The Telegraph reported, as covered by
ISNA.
The terror group is known to harbour chemical and nuclear ambitions,
and is trying to manufacture weapons not only for attacks within Iraq
and Syria but also the West.
It has a special unit for chemical weapons research made up of Iraqi
scientists who worked on weapons programs under the former dictator
Saddam Hussein, as well as foreign experts.
The head of the unit, Suleiman Daoud al-Afari, was captured during a
raid by US special forces outside Mosul in March and is now sharing
intelligence on ISIS’s chemical operation.
An investigation by Syrian and Iraqi citizen journalists, who report under the name
Sound and Picture,
reveals that he has now been replaced by Abu Shaima, an Iraqi doctor
who worked at the University of Baghdad during Saddam’s reign.
Other than his links to the late Iraqi dictator, little is known about Shaima, which is customary for top ISIS leaders.
He is said last month to have moved the group’s operations away from
its main laboratories at the universities of Mosul and Tel Afar, which
have both been hit in recent months, to residential areas to protect it
against aerial attack.
Residents of al-Mohandseen – which had been a wealthy Christian
neighborhood until ISIS seized the city – said several houses had been
taken over by ISIS officials in the last few weeks. A number of large
unmarked trucks have been parked outside
and more recently they reported
seeing dozens of dead dogs and rabbits in nearby rubbish containers.
An ISIS insider confirmed to the journalists, who shared the information with
The Telegraph, that they had been dumped there after they were used for chemical testing.
The report also claimed ISIS has been carrying out experiments on
prisoners they are holding at a secret jail in al-Andalus, in the
Nineveh governorate of Mosul, exposing them to chlorine and mustard gas
to test the toxicity.
Residents near the prison have reported breathing difficulties and
children developing severe rashes – some of the side effects of exposure
to such substances.
The extremists have seized large quantities of industrial chlorine
and are believed to have the expertise to make mustard gas. They are
also feared to have captured chemical weapon stocks from the Syrian army
across the border.
The militant group has already used chemical weapons against Kurdish Peshmerga forces in northern Iraq and Syria.
In March, a suspected ISIS chemical attack on the Iraqi town of Taza,
south of Kirkuk, killed three children and wounded some 1,500 people,
with injuries ranging from burns to rashes and respiratory problems.
Brigadier Roger Noble, the deputy commander of international troops training and supporting the Iraqi army, told
The Telegraph that ISIS militants are expected to use chemical weapons against troops trying to retake Mosul, Iraq’s second city.
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, former commanding officer of the UK
Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Regiment (CBRN) and
chemical weapons adviser to NGOs in Syria and Iraq, told
The Telegraph the revelations showed the group was adapting to the coalition’s punishing air strikes.
“
ISIS’s chemical weapons operation has been heavily targeted – as is
detailed in this report – and moving into residential areas is exactly
what you would expect them to do now.”
He said Western security services should be concerned that their
chemical operations have effectively gone underground, allowing them to
continue their work outside of strike range.
“
Now we know the extent of the ISIS chemical and dirty bomb
aspirations we must make doubly sure that our security in the UK is
absolutely water-tight against this threat.”
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