US officials believe the Islamic State group used mustard gas in an attack on Kurdish forces in Iraq this week, according to reports.
The Wall Street Journal quotes an unnamed US official as saying: “We have credible information that the agent used in the attack was mustard.”
If correct, this would be the first indication the militant group, which controls swathes of Syria and Iraq, has obtained banned chemical weapons.
This would worry the US administration, stung by accusations from Iraqi government forces and Kurdish fighters that they are not receiving the support they need to counter the IS threat.
IS could have obtained the mustard gas in Syria, whose government admitted to having large quantities of the blistering agent in 2013, when it agreed to give up its chemical weapons arsenal, the newspaper reports. It it also possible it came from Iraq.
The attack is said to happened on Wednesday, 40 miles from Erbil in northern Iraq. A German defence ministry spokesman said 60 Kurdish peshmerga fighters were reported to have suffered injuries to their throats that were consistent with a chemical attack.
Mustard gas
Mustard gas was first used as a weapon by the German army against British, French and Canadian troops in the First World War - and was later used against the Germans by allied armies (Adolf Hitler claimed he was one of the victims).
Chemical weapons (not mustard gas) were also by Britain against the Bolsheviks in 1919. Winston Churchill, then war secretary, also suggested they be used against Iraq in 1920, but historians are divided as to whether this happened.
Since WW1, mustard gas has been used on several occasions: Italy against Libya in 1930; the Soviet Union against China in the 1930s; Italy against Ethiopia from 1935-40; Japan against China from 1937-45; Iraq against the Kurds in Halabja from 1983-88.
The use of poison gases was prohibited by the 1925 Geneva Protocol. The 1993 Chemical Weapons Conventon also bans their development, production and stockpiling.
The White House’s National Security Council said it was aware of the reports and was seeking more information. “We continue to take these and all allegations of chemical weapons use very seriously,” spokesman Ali Baskey said in a statement.
US intelligence agencies have said in the past they believed IS had used chlorine gas in attacks in Iraq, the Wall Street Journal says.
The Assad regime in Syria admitted in the past that it had stockpiles of VX and sarin, which are deadlier than mustard gas, but there are no indications IS has obtained these.
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former commanding officer of the British army’s chemical-weapons unit, told the Wall Street Journal: “You mention chemical weapons, people immediately freeze and are irrational. That’s why Islamic State wants to use them.”
The Syrian regime is believed by some to have used chemical weapons against anti-government rebels, but has denied this. Barack Obama has said there is “conclusive” evidence Assad’s government was responsible for chemical attacks.