US officials confirmed to the US newspaper that mustard gas was likely used in the attack and that the jihadists could have obtained the chemical weapons in Syria.
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“When it’s close air support or operational support the numbers go up”, he said, pointing to recent air strikes near Ramadi and Bayji and other locations in Iraq and Syria, where U.S. forces targeted al-Nusra Front as well as Islamic State.
The air campaign has seen the heaviest use ever of precision weapons.
The White House’s National Security Council said it was aware of the reports and was seeking more information. The agent was developed during World War I and was banned by treaty in 1993. Germany’s military has been training the Kurds in the area, and the German Defense Ministry said some 60 Kurdish fighters had suffered breathing difficulties from the attack – a telltale sign of chemical weapons use.
It is generally used in a gaseous state and it gets the name Mustard Gas as it emits an odor similar to mustard.
U.S. intelligence agencies have said in the past they believed Islamic State has used chlorine gas in attacks in Iraq, the Journal reported.
“We continue to take these and all allegations of chemical weapons use very seriously”, spokesman Ali Baskey said in a statement.
One defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the late July bombing was the second most intense since the campaign started a year ago, topped only by a two-week period in September when the U.S.-led coalition began operations in Syria.
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former commanding officer of the British army’s chemical-weapons unit, said the use of mustard agent by Islamic State could give a boost to the group’s “psychological warfare campaign”.
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Anton Troianovski in Berlin and Felicia Schwartz in Washington contributed to this article.
