Senior U.S. officials confirmed reports that the Islamic State may have used chemical weapons in an attack on Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq late Wednesday that left 60 with breathing difficulties.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Islamic State militants probably used mustard agent against Kurdish fighters in the attack near the town of Makhmour that wounded four.
The terrorist group could have obtained the chemical weapons in Syria, as Bashar al-Assad’s regime admitted to possessing large amounts of chemical weapons in 2013 that it agreed to relinquish. However, U.S. intelligence agencies recently determined that Syria did not give up all of its chemical weapons.
One senior U.S. official contended that the possibility of IS obtaining mustard agent from Syria "makes the most sense." Officials also speculated that the agent could have been harvested in Iraq from preserved stockpiles from Saddam Hussein’s reign.
While U.S. intelligence agencies had speculated behind closed doors that IS had obtained at least some mustard agent, the attack this week--if confirmed to have involved chemical weapons--would represent the first concrete evidence that the Islamic State has gotten ahold of the chemicals.
The German Defense Ministry and Kurdish fighters on Thursday accused IS of using chemical weapons during the attack in northern Iraq, though they did not offer specific information regarding the type of weapons believed to have been used.
According to the defense ministry, approximately 60 Kurdish fighters endured throat injuries indicative of a chemical weapons attack.
Mustard agent causes burns, blisters and immobility, but does not become deadly unless used in large amounts.
U.S. intelligence agencies are currently investigating the situation.
The Islamic State has been accumulating territory in Syria and Iraq and implementing traditional methods of governance there, such as issuing identification cards and dispersing fishing guidelines.
U.S. intelligence agencies concluded last month that the Obama administration’s bomb campaign launched in 2014 against IS has yielded no perceivable degradation of the terrorist organization’s forces.
Still, President Obama has insisted that there are no plans to send more troops overseas to fight the Islamic State.