ISIS Occupy Saddam Hussein’s Chemical Weapons Facility
BAGHDAD, IRAQ (Worthy News)– The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) occupy a chemical-weapons production facility built by Saddam Hussein, a complex U.S. officials said still contain a stockpile of old weapons, The Wall Street Journal reported.
U.S. officials don’t believe the Sunni militants will be able to create a functional chemical weapon from the material. The weapons stockpiled at the Al Muthanna complex are old, contaminated and hard to move, officials said.
Nonetheless, the capture of the chemical-weapon stockpile by the forces of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, known as ISIS or ISIL, the militant group that is seizing territory in the country, has grabbed the attention of the U.S.
“We remain concerned about the seizure of any military site by the ISIL,” Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman, said in a written statement. “We do not believe that the complex contains CW materials of military value and it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to safely move the materials.” —Source
The jihadist group bringing terror to Iraq overran a Saddam Hussein chemical weapons complex on Thursday, gaining access to disused stores of hundreds of tonnes of potentially deadly poisons including mustard gas and sarin.
“It is doubtful that Isis have the expertise to use a fully functioning chemical munition but there are materials on site that could be used in an improvised explosive device,” he told the Telegraph. “We have seen that Isis has used chemicals in explosions in Iraq before and has carried out experiments in Syria.” — Source
Related Sites —
MOD experts to help Iraqis destroy legacy chemical weapons – UK Ministry of Defense
Al Muthanna Chemical Weapons Complex – Central Intelligence Agency