The United
States expects Islamic State to use crude chemical weapons as it tries to repel
an Iraqi-led offensive on the city of Mosul, U.S. officials say, although
adding
that the group's technical ability to develop such weapons is highly
limited.
U.S. forces
have begun to regularly collect shell fragments to test for possible chemical
agents, given Islamic State's use of mustard agent in the months before
Monday's launch of the Mosul offensive, one official said.
In a
previously undisclosed incident, U.S. forces confirmed the presence of a sulfur
mustard agent on Islamic State munition fragments on Oct. 5, a second official
said. The Islamic State had targeted local forces, not U.S. or coalition
troops.
"Given
ISIL's reprehensible behavior and flagrant disregard for international
standards and norms, this event is not surprising," the second official
told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity, and using an acronym for
Islamic State.
U.S. officials
do not believe Islamic State has been successful so far at developing chemical
weapons with particularly lethal effects, meaning that conventional weapons are
still the most dangerous threat for advancing Iraqi and Kurdish forces - and
any foreign advisers who get close enough.
Sulfur mustard
agents can cause blistering on exposed skin and lungs. At low doses, however,
that would not be deadly.
Roughly 5,000
U.S. forces are in Iraq. More than 100 of them are embedded with Iraqi and
Kurdish Peshmerga forces involved with the Mosul offensive, advising commanders
and helping them ensure coalition air power hits the right targets, officials
said. Still, those forces are not at the front lines, they added.
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HUMAN SHIELDS
The fall of
Mosul would signal the defeat of the ultra-hardline Sunni jihadists in Iraq but
could also lead to land grabs and sectarian bloodletting between groups that
fought one another after the 2003 overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
U.S. President
Barack Obama estimated on Thursday that perhaps 1 million civilians were still
in Mosul, creating a challenge for Iraq and its Western backers trying to expel
the group through force.
"If we
aren't successful in helping ordinary people as they're fleeing from ISIL, then
that makes us vulnerable to seeing ISIL return," Obama told reporters in
Washington.
The
International Organization for Migration’s Iraq chief, Thomas Weiss, said on
Tuesday he expected Islamic State militants to use Mosul residents as human
shields and lent his voice to concerns about the dangers of chemical agents.
The IOM had
not managed to procure many gas masks yet, despite those risks, Weiss said from
Baghdad.
We also fear,
and there has been some evidence that ISIL might be using chemical weapons.
Children, the elderly, disabled, will be particularly vulnerable,” Weiss said.
Attacking
Iraqi forces are still 12 to 30 miles (20 to 50 km) from the city itself and
U.S. officials believe that Islamic State is most likely to use chemical
weapons later in the campaign, in what could be a difficult, protracted battle.
The leader of
Islamic State was reported to be among thousands of hardline militants still in
the city, suggesting the group would go to great lengths to repel the
coalition.
American
officials believe some of Islamic State's best fighters are in Mosul.
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