ISIS Raids Iraqi Chemical Weapons Depot, May Possess Sarin Gas, UN Told
According to the Iraqi government, ISIS controls a massive compound that contains 2,500 rusting rockets loaded with chemical weapons, raising fears the jihadists may now possess deadly Sarin gas.
The chemical weapons site, known as the Muthanna State Establishment, was bombed during the first Gulf War, according to The Daily Mail, but only partially destroyed. Abandoned weapons containing the nerve agent Sarin are still present in the ruins of the facility, which manufactured chemical ordinance in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Has ISIS looted chemical weapons from former nerve agent factory? Found at http://t.co/3QlWI7xl7N pic.twitter.com/GWVe2qzAFJ
— Kavalon Gilliam (@KavalonThatsMe) October 15, 2014
In a letter to the United Nations this summer, Iraqi Ambassador Mohamed Ali Alhakim claimed the facility is now in the hands of ISIS militants. Officials warned that they had observed equipment being looted on CCTV, before militants shut the cameras down, according to The New York Times.
Writing to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Alhakim noted that the remnants of an Iraqi chemical weapons program are kept in two bunkers at the site, which lies 60 miles to the North of Baghdad.
The Muthanna complex measures three miles by three miles, though bunkers 13 and 41 are thought to hold chemical weapons. Bunker 13 reportedly contained 2,500 chemical rockets filled with Sarin gas, produced before 1991.
Saddam-Era Chemical Weapons Now Under ISIS Still many countries deny the proliferation of mass destructive weapons? pic.twitter.com/3EHeyPHoR3
— Syed Atiq Turabi (@Syed_Attique) October 15, 2014
“The project management spotted at dawn on Thursday, 12 June 2014, through the camera surveillance system, the looting of some of the project equipment and appliances, before the terrorists disabled the surveillance system,” Alhakim wrote in his June 30 letter, adding “The Government of Iraq requests the States Members of the United Nations to understand the current inability of Iraq, owing to the deterioration of the security situation, to fulfill its obligations to destroy chemical weapons”
U.S. Defense Department spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby stated that the United States understood chemical weapons contained at the Muthanna complex are aged and unlikely to be utilized.
“We aren’t viewing this particular site and their holding it as a major issue at this point,” he said. “Should they even be able to access the materials, frankly, it would likely be more of a threat to them than anyone else.”
In July, ISIS assaulted Syrian Kurds in the Kobani region, reportedly utilizing chemical weapons. As the Inquisitr related, photos of the victims appeared to show burns concurrent with the use of chemical ordinance. The attack came just a month after ISIS forces were spotted at the Muthanna chemical weapons complex.
[Image: CIA via The Daily Mail]
