CNN reported Wednesday that the US military has used information provided by al-Afari to target ISIS areas in Iraq associated with the group’s chemical-weapons program.
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USA officials announced last week that a US commando force had captured an IS leader in Iraq without giving his name. That is the same model once used by the Joint Special Operations Command in Iraq and Afghanistan, which tore through al Qaeda’s leadership hierarchy in a wave of night raids that scooped up high-level detainees.
The U.S. has said all Special Operations missions are coordinated with the Iraqi government.
The Pentagon said on Thursday it captured the Islamic State’s chemical weapons chief in Iraq during an operation in February.
“We feel good about the damage we’ve done to the program”, Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said.
Cook declined to provide details of the strikes but said the information they’ve received will allow the U.S.to conduct additional strikes. Sleiman Daoud Al-Afari, who had previously worked in a senior position developing chemical and biological weapons for the late Saddam Hussein, recently joined a new unit dedicated to developing chemical weapons for ISIS. Iraqi and Kurdish officials said dozens of civilians were injured by the attack on Taza Khurmatu, a town whose residents are mostly Shi’ite Muslim ethnic Turkmen.
The suspect is now being grilled by USA officials at a detention facility in Erbil, Iraq, The Times reported on Wednesday.
“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.
Defense Minister Khaled al-Obaidi played down Islamic State’s.
Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. Jeff Davis said IS has repeatedly used “sulfur mustard” as a weapon in Iraq and Syria.
Chemical warfare agents, broadly condemned and banned by most nations under worldwide convention, are indiscriminate.
U.S. Special Operations forces captured the operative more than three weeks ago.
Kurdish forces repeatedly have asked Washington for gas masks as protection from chemical-laced artillery shells fired at their troops.
” Scott Pelley: Does ISIS have chemical weapons?
The United States has been leading a coalition waging airstrikes against IS in Iraq and Syria for more than a year. The campaign has backed Iraqi and Kurdish forces who have slowly retaken significant parts of the territory the militants had seized.
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The Kurds apparently were killed by “mustard gas or some kind of blistering agent” , the Middle East Review of International Affairs told Fox News at the time.
