Kurds accuse ISIS of using chlorine gas in Iraq. AP

Kurdish troops investigate a bomb site in Iraq. AP

Kurdish troops are accusing ISIS of using chlorine gas in a suicide attack last January. AP. The attack took place on a road between Mosul and the Syrian border during a battle to secure the road between ISIS and Kurdish Peshmerga forces. The Kurds provided evidence, including around 20 canisters of chlorine and video that appeared to show the gas coming from a suicide vehicle that subsequently blew up. Dozens of Kurdish troops were treated for exposure. The Kurds said that samples taken from the site confirmed that the chemical used was chlorine. Outside sources were unable to verify this attack but this is not the first time that the Islamic State has been accused of using chemical weapons. Reports of chlorine attacks happened last year as well in both Iraq and Syria.

Video from the BBC about the tactic of using chlorine as a chemical weapon.

My Comment:

Not a good development. Like both the AP article and BBC video said, this tactic is not new, but it does seem to be more common. I don't think these attacks are especially effective, but as a terror weapon they are horrifying. People have a great fear of chemical weapons, and for good reason. Plus this tactic has the bonus of making it more difficult to treat people wounded in the initial attack because the responders will be exposed to gas. That delay of treatment and the secondary injuries this gas causes could make suicide or other kinds of bombing even more deadly. 

It also doesn't seem like Iraq or the Kurds have an effective plan on how to prevent or react to these attacks. The BBC video said that most Iraqi troops aren't issued gas masks or other protective equipment, which just seems crazy to me. As far as military equipment goes, gas masks are pretty cheap, but apparently they were not a priority. Also, these kinds of attacks are very hard to prevent because chlorine is rather easy to get a hold of. Chlorine has many industrial purposes and because of that fact you can't get rid of it. You can try and control it but given the state of Iraq and Syria right now it isn't surprising that ISIS was able to find some. 

The great fear is that what ISIS is learning about chemical weapons will someday be exported to terrorists organizations that are targeting the west. Even a minor chemical attack by an Islamic terrorist group in the west would have a huge impact that would go beyond the people it made sick or killed. The good news is that chlorine is a bit harder to get a hold of in the west then it is in a failed state like Iraq or Syria. The bad news is that is probably easier to get a hold of the chlorine needed in a gas bomb then it is to find the explosives...

The good news is that it appears that ISIS has not been able to capture any more serious chemical weapons from either Syria or Iraq. There was some concern a few months ago that ISIS had taken control of a facility that housed Iraq's leftover chemical weapons, but apparently nothing ever came of it. Of course the fact that very few people even realize that Iraq had chemical weapons, most people ignored that report. It is possible that ISIS was able to secure those chemical weapons and we never heard about it because it was politically inconvenient. The fact that the New York Times piece that exposed the fact that there were still huge stockpiles of chemical weapons in Iraq got very little further coverage says to me that the powers that be do not want this discussion to happen. In other words, people outside of the intelligence community won't hear about ISIS holding leftover chemical weapons until they try to use them...