As Parisians continue to grieve the lives of their people taken away by the Islamic State in a series of attacks last week, the terrorists are once again spreading terror as officials recently confirmed that chemical weapons may be used by the jihadists in other attacks.
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Earlier, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls also warned that Islamic State could potentially use chemical or biological weapons in its attacks. But we know and bear in mind that there is also a risk of chemical or biological weapons.
Iraqi officials expressed concern that the large haven the extremists have controlled since overrunning parts of Iraq and Syria past year has left Iraqi authorities largely in the dark about the Islamic State program.
The officer and two officials from another Iraqi intelligence agency have not given details of the programme.
The issue brief outlines options the anti-ISIS coalition can use to defeat ISIS by increasing support to local partners in the fight, increasing coalition resources and airstrikes, improving intelligence cooperation with allies, continuing diplomatic efforts to wind down Syria’s civil war, and degrading ISIS sanctuaries and networks outside of Iraq and Syria through law enforcement, military, and diplomatic means. In those attacks, preliminary US analysis found trace amounts of sulfur mustard on the weapons.
ISIS has already managed to use mustard gas at least once against Syrian rebel forces in Aleppo.
Despite this, Iraq’s military distributed gas masks to troops deployed west and north of Baghdad over the Summer, amidst fears Isis may expand their weapons use, a general told AP.
On the other hand, USA intelligence officers clarified that with the lack of highly technological equipment inside ISIS labs and posts, it would be incapable of producing more advanced weapons such as nerve gas. They wouldn’t give details of the program, including how many personnel it is thought to have or its budget.
“They are working very seriously to reach production of chemical weapons, particularly nerve gas”, he said. “That would threaten not just Iraq but the whole world”.
USA intelligence officials told NBC News that ISIS was the non-state actor.
But a day after a seven-hour shoot-out in a Paris suburb appeared to have killed Abdelhamid Abaaoud (27), the main suspect in the attacks, Mr Valls called for a three-month state of emergency and warned that there could be further attacks – this time with unconventional weapons.
A United Nations chemical weapons expert, wearing a gas mask, holds a plastic bag containing samples from one of the sites of an alleged chemical weapons attack in Damascus on August 29, 2013.
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Jennings Heilig of Abingdon, Va., wrote, “To use their name for their organization lends credibility to their claims of a caliphate”.
