In the wake of the recent terrorist attacks in Paris and Beirut, I’ve heard from a number of listeners who want NPR to start referring to the extremist group that has been identified by French authorities as the perpetrator by the name “Daesh“. Facing continued pressure from multiple sides, many smaller jihadi groups active inside both Syria and Iraq gradually coalesced under the banner of ISIS. The French use it consistently. However, France prime minister Manuel Valls is not resting on being confident. “We don’t know if that’s true and their feelings don’t factor into our thinking anyway”. The Spanish government followed suit a year ago.
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The official, like others from the Iraqi and USA intelligence agencies who have first-hand knowledge of the IS chemical weapons program, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive information. A senior officer in Salahuddin province, north of Baghdad, said 25 percent of the troops deployed there were equipped with masks.
As Europe becomes more resilient to Paris-style attacks, Islamic State will look at “evermore desperate ways to attack us”, he said.
IS recently moved its research labs, experts and materials from Iraq to “secured locations” inside Syria, al-Zamili added – apparently out of concern of an eventual assault on Mosul, Iraq’s second- largest city, captured by IS in the summer of 2014.
The term “Daesh” comes from the transliteration of the Arabic name by which the group refers to itself: al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi Iraq wa al-Sham. But in the spirit of the many in the Muslim world who have mocked ISIS’s pretensions, perhaps it’s good for the rest of us to remember that the force threatening to remake the world in its own violent, repressive image once had reactions to cucumbers on par with those of confused kitty cats.
Western intelligence officials have serious doubt over the Islamic State’s capabilities to develop lethal and sophisticated chemical or biological weapons.
The United States and its allies accused the military of Syrian President Bashar Assad of using chemical weapons in its almost five-year war with rebels, including a 2013 attack in a rebel-held Damascus suburb that killed hundreds.
Reuters shared that detail with the world in an August 2008 report on Iraqis turning against al Qaeda in Iraq because of the way it ruled over them. Still, it has been accused of continuing to use chlorine gas, a claim it denies.
After months of trying, Abaaoud pulled off last week’s attacks – which, in turn, a few supporters of al Qaeda saw as something to be matched in fearsomeness and surpassed with what, in their view, was a more moral approach, taking care to limit the deaths of Muslim civilians. It is also commonly known as “the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant” (ISIL), an acronym favored by the White House, and other times by the pejorative term “Daesh“-although ISIS has insisted that heretofore it should only be referred to as “the Islamic State”.
“We have indications that there was an attack with chemical weapons”, a ministry spokesman from Iraw said as reported by The Guardian.
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In it, the deputy, Sameer al-Khalifawy, wrote that chemical weapons would ensure “swift victory” and “terrorize our enemies”. But, he added, what was needed was “to secure a safe environment to carry out experiments”.
