An Islamic State detainee now in USA custody at a temporary detention facility in Erbil, Iraq, is a specialist in chemical weapons whom US military officials are questioning about the militant Sunni group’s plans to use the banned substances in Iraq and Syria, Defense Department officials said.
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They said al-Afari, who is about 50 years old, heads the Islamic State group’s recently established branch for the research and development of chemical weapons.
“We feel good about the damage we’ve done to the program”, he said. Cook declined to say more about the capture, but other defense officials have said al-Bakkar, also known as Sleiman Daoud al-Afari, was captured by USA special forces in northern Iraq.
Al-Afari is said to have been arrested in an operation near the northern Iraqi town of Tal Afar.
In February, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and CIA Director John Brennan for the first time openly accused the Islamic State group of using chemical weapons, including mustard gas, in Iraq and Syria.
US intelligence is still trying to confirm if he was in fact killed.
The Wednesday bombardment is the initial round of airstrikes aimed at diminishing the militant group’s ability to use mustard agent.
Little is publicly known about Islamic State’s access to unconventional weapons, and whether the group is producing poison gases at chemical plants or laboratories, or simply is recycling toxic materials recovered from the pre-1991 period. The officials, who have first-hand knowledge of the individual and of the IS chemical program, spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to brief the media.
Following a strategy developed in Iraq and Afghanistan, the USA teams target homes and compounds, set up safehouses, and work with Iraqi and Kurdish forces to build informant networks. They are also hard to defend against without specialized equipment, which numerous Islamic States foes in Iraq and Syria lack, and they are worrisome as potential terrorist weapons, though chlorine and blister agents are typically less lethal than bullets, shrapnel or explosives. American officials have been deeply secretive about the operation.
IS has been making a determined effort to develop chemical weapons, Iraqi and American officials have said.
U.S. Special Operations forces captured the operative more than three weeks ago.
Meanwhile, further special forces raids targeting chemical weapons experts are planned, the intelligence officials said.
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“We believe that Islamic State for Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) was responsible for the sulfur mustard attack in Marea, Syria on August 21, 2015, largely based on photographic evidence and the Syrian opposition’s description of the event”, said a CENTCOM statement.
