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Daesh used mustard gas against Iraq’s Kurdish fighters: Source

The AFP photo shows the headquarters of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) at The Hague, Netherlands.

Test results show that the Daesh Takfiri group used mustard gas against Kurdish Peshmerga forces in Iraq last year, says a source from the global chemical weapons watchdog.

The source at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said on Monday that laboratory tests confirmed that Daesh militants had used sulfur mustard, commonly known as mustard gas, on the battlefield last August, Reuters reported.

Blood samples were taken from almost 35 Kurdish fighters who became ill during their fight against Daesh militants southwest of Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, last August.

Mustard gas, which has few uses outside chemical warfare, can form large blisters on exposed skin and in the respiratory tract. It is banned under the Chemical Weapons Convention, which is an arms treaty intended to stop the use of chemical weapons.

The terrorist group is notorious for its barbarity, heinous atrocities and sacrilegious acts. The Takfiri militants have been accused of committing gross human rights violations and war crimes in areas they control, particularly in Syria, and Iraq. The group has used chemical weapons both in Iraq and Syria.  

In October 2015, the Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs in Iraq’s Kurdistan said that Daesh fired mortar rounds containing mustard gas at Kurdish fighters.

Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service, also known as the BND, said in August 2015 that it had collected evidence that the Takfiri group had used mustard gas against Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq.

In August 2015, the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also said Daesh militants struck the town of Mare', located north of the flashpoint city of Aleppo with artillery shells that contained chemicals.

In the same month, US media outlets citing several American intelligence and military officials also said that the terrorists had used mustard agent as a weapon in their raid on the northeastern Syrian city of Hasakah in early August.


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