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US Probes Reports of IS Chlorine Gas Attacks

by VOA News October 24, 2014

U.S. officials are investigating reports that Islamic State militants are using chlorine gas bombs against Iraqi security forces in their fight to grab more territory.

According to various accounts in U.S. and Iraqi media, the militants detonated the gas with homemade bombs, unleashing streams of yellow smoke in an assault on Iraqi police last month near Balad, just north of Baghdad.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday the allegations have not yet been confirmed, but they are seen as an 'extremely serious' matter. U.S. officials are seeking additional information about the recent media reports.

A doctor treating Kurdish fighters in the Syrian border town of Kobani told VOA's Kurdish service in a telephone interview that he treated some 20 people this week with what appeared to be symptoms of chlorine gas poisoning.

Dr. Dara Mahmud, one of four doctors still in Kobani, said patients were brought in on Tuesday with difficulty breathing, tearful eyes, headache, swollen lips, nausea and red welts on their skin.

Iraqi news media reported that fighters from the Islamic State group used chlorine gas in an attack in September on an army base west of Baghdad at Saqlawiyah.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons reported last month that it found 'compelling information' about chlorine being used systematically and repeatedly as a weapon against villages in northern Syria earlier this year, although it was not clear who was responsible.

Islamic State militants now control territory stretching from northeastern Syria into northwestern Iraq.

In July the extremist IS group took control of a chemical-weapons bunker in Muthanna, Iraq. U.S. officials at the time said the weapons were mostly old and the chemicals there degraded.

Chlorine is noxious and can be a deadly poison in its gaseous form. Chemical compounds including chlorine are commonly used in industry, both to purify drinking water and in the production of pesticides.