Reuters, 15/02 18:21 CET
By Anthony Deutsch
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Islamic
State militants attacked Kurdish forces in Iraq with mustard gas last
year, in the first known use of chemical weapons in Iraq since the fall
of Saddam Hussein, a diplomat said, after tests by the global chemical
arms watchdog.
A source at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)
confirmed that laboratory tests had come back positive for the sulfur
mustard, after around 35 Kurdish troops were sickened on the battlefield
last August.
The OPCW will not identify who
used the chemical agent. But the diplomat, speaking on condition of
anonymity because the findings have not yet been released, said the
result confirmed that chemical weapons had been used by Islamic State
fighters.
The samples were taken after the soldiers became ill
during fighting against Islamic State militants southwest of Erbil,
capital of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region.
The OPCW already concluded in
October that mustard gas was used last year in neighboring Syria.
Islamic State has declared a “caliphate” in territory it controls in
both Iraq and Syria and does not recognize the frontier.
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Source: Euronews
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