Islamic State militants may have fired a chemical rocket at American troops based in Iraq, the USA military says.
Advertisement
A US military official said the rocket came within hundreds of yards of USA forces near the Qayyarah West base.
It’d function as the first chemical weapons assault on coalition forces in Iraq, if supported.
The official said there have been a number of instances this year in which IS has used chemical agents against Iraqi, Kurdish and Syrian forces.
However, U.S. defense officials then believed that the mustard gas, weaponized by the IS into powered form, was expected to be not concentrated enough to kill anyone.
U.S. and Iraqi officials have said the push on Mosul could begin in October, though there are concerns that not enough planning has been done for how to manage the city, Iraq’s second-largest, if and when Islamic State is expelled.
The shell was tested in the field twice by coalition troops, the officials said.
Dunford said that while the Islamic State has a “chemical warfare network”, it has only limited means of making effective chemical weapons.
A United States defense official said troops had gone out to look at the ordnance after it landed.
Daesh militants have launched a chemical attack against an air base in northern Iraq, US officials say.
As a precautionary measure, the two to four USA military personnel who came across the shell fragment were decontaminated with showers and brushing to wipe away any agent, the official said.
According to the source, the first test was positive and the second was negative, with further tests now reportedly taking place.
Troops had to be decontaminated after being targeted with an Islamic State mustard gas attack.
The official told NBC News that “hundreds” of American troops were at the base south of ISIS’s stronghold of Mosul when the shell landed.
ISIL seised Mosul in a lightning offensive through the north and west of the country, in 2014.
Advertisement
The U.S. government has previously accused the Islamic State of using chemical weapons.
