USA troops are providing support to local forces as they prepare for the offensive.
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A rocket containing mustard agent landed near a base housing American troops involved in the fight against ISIS militants in Iraq, a USA official told NBC News on Wednesday.
If the substance is confirmed to be a mustard agent, it would mark the first occurrence of chemical weapons being used against coalition forces in Iraq. Despite their sometimes deadly effects, chemical rounds are often less lethal than their explosive counterparts.
Defence officials based in Washington say that the shell landed at the Qayyara air base, south of Mosul in Nineveh Province, on Tuesday 20 September.
There were no USA casualties, Davis said, and the shell, “likely a rocket or mortar, was imprecise and crude”.
No US troops were said to have been hurt in the incident but still used decontamination showers as a precaution. Exposure at a place of impact could cause blistering, but the agent dissipates quickly and does not spread over a wide area.
An official with knowledge of one of the attacks said one rocket landed “real close” to US troops. The sample has been sent to a lab for conclusive results.
In late August, Iraqi forces retook a town 45 miles south of Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq.
Iraq announced Thursday that its forces have recaptured a northern town from the Islamic State group in an operation launched ahead of a push for the city of Mosul. According to defense officials, the degraded state of the base has made it hard to turn it into an effective staging area for the approaching Mosul battle.
The IS operative was reportedly identified as Sleiman Daoud al-Afari, a chemical and biological weapons expert who once worked for Iraq’s Saddam Hussein government.
Earlier this month, the Pentagon reported American warplanes bombed a complex of buildings near the northern city of Mosul that Islamic State militants had converted from pharmaceutical manufacturing to chemical weapons production.
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No one is said to have been hurt in the attack while none of the military forces there have been reported as being exposed to the risky agent.
