In December, the Obama administration dispatched a commando force to Iraq to capture and kill Islamic State leaders. Reportedly he has been providing actionable intelligence on related ISIS facilities in response to interrogation (presumably being conducted either by JSOC alone or perhaps the HIG, in the “temporary detention facility” we seem to have in Erbil), and this has supported a wave of airstrikes. She was later charged in a US federal court. In Washington, U.S. officials confirmed al-Afari’s identity. He is in charge of many chemical attacks against the Iraqi forces and pesh merga, the Kurdish security forces. One U.S. official said the goal is to locate, target and carry out strikes that will result in the destruction of ISIS’s entire chemical weapons enterprise – mainly mustard agent ISIS produces itself.
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Defense Department officials insist that the United States had no plans to hold the detainee or any other captives indefinitely, and that they would be handed over to the Iraqi and Kurdish authorities after they had been interviewed.
US officials said last week that the expeditionary team had captured an Islamic State leader but had refused to identify him, saying only that he had been held for two or three weeks and was being questioned. The gas is not concentrated enough to kill, but can cause extreme chemical burns.
Cook said the intelligence came from “the information we learned from this individual”.
At the request of the Pentagon, CNN initially withheld publishing the detainee’s connection to ISIS’ chemical weapons program because defense officials said disclosing that would risk alerting ISIS to potential airstrike targets.
The U.S. has been leading the coalition in waging airstrikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria for more than a year.
The Pentagon said it learned details about Islamic State’s chemical weapon facilities and production, as well as the people involved, from Dawud.
Meanwhile, further special forces raids targeting chemical weapons experts are planned, the intelligence officials said. It is not known how many special forces are present, although the media has estimated it may be fewer than 100 soldiers.
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It could not immediately be learned if there were Iraqi forces took part in the raid to capture the man, or whether Iraqis were involved in the airstrikes. It was the first raid by the ETF, which is based in Iraq and created to conduct raids against ISIS figures in Iraq and Syria.
