Washington: The United States expects ISIS to use crude chemical weapons as it tries to repel an Iraqi-led offensive on the city of Mosul, US officials say, although adding that the group's technical ability to develop such weapons is highly limited.
US forces have begun to regularly collect shell fragments to test for possible chemical agents, given ISIS's use of mustard agent in the months before Monday's launch of the Mosul offensive, one official said.
In a previously undisclosed incident, US forces confirmed the presence of a sulfur mustard agent on ISIS munition fragments on Oct. 5, a second official said. The Islamic State had targeted local forces, not US or coalition troops.
US officials do not believe ISIS has been successful so far at developing chemical weapons with particularly lethal effects, meaning that conventional weapons are still the most dangerous threat for advancing Iraqi and Kurdish forces - and any foreign advisers who get close enough.
Roughly 5,000 US forces are in Iraq. More than 100 of them are embedded with Iraqi and Kurdish Peshmerga forces involved with the Mosul offensive, advising commanders and helping them ensure coalition air power hits the right targets, officials said. Still, those forces are not at the front lines, they added.
The fall of Mosul would signal the defeat of the ultra-hardline Sunni jihadists in Iraq but could also lead to land grabs and sectarian bloodletting between groups that fought one another after the 2003 overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
"If we aren't successful in helping ordinary people as they're fleeing from ISIL, then that makes us vulnerable to seeing ISIL return," Obama told reporters in Washington.
The IOM had not managed to procure many gas masks yet, despite those risks, Weiss said from Baghdad.
Attacking Iraqi forces are still 12 to 30 miles (20 to 50 km) from the city itself and US officials believe that ISIS is most likely to use chemical weapons later in the campaign, in what could be a difficult, protracted battle.
The leader of ISIS was reported to be among thousands of hardline militants still in the city, suggesting the group would go to great lengths to repel the coalition.
American officials believe some of ISIS's best fighters are in Mosul.
US forces have begun to regularly collect shell fragments to test for possible chemical agents, given ISIS's use of mustard agent in the months before Monday's launch of the Mosul offensive, one official said.
In a previously undisclosed incident, US forces confirmed the presence of a sulfur mustard agent on ISIS munition fragments on Oct. 5, a second official said. The Islamic State had targeted local forces, not US or coalition troops.
US officials do not believe ISIS has been successful so far at developing chemical weapons with particularly lethal effects, meaning that conventional weapons are still the most dangerous threat for advancing Iraqi and Kurdish forces - and any foreign advisers who get close enough.
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Roughly 5,000 US forces are in Iraq. More than 100 of them are embedded with Iraqi and Kurdish Peshmerga forces involved with the Mosul offensive, advising commanders and helping them ensure coalition air power hits the right targets, officials said. Still, those forces are not at the front lines, they added.
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The fall of Mosul would signal the defeat of the ultra-hardline Sunni jihadists in Iraq but could also lead to land grabs and sectarian bloodletting between groups that fought one another after the 2003 overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
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"If we aren't successful in helping ordinary people as they're fleeing from ISIL, then that makes us vulnerable to seeing ISIL return," Obama told reporters in Washington.
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The IOM had not managed to procure many gas masks yet, despite those risks, Weiss said from Baghdad.
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Attacking Iraqi forces are still 12 to 30 miles (20 to 50 km) from the city itself and US officials believe that ISIS is most likely to use chemical weapons later in the campaign, in what could be a difficult, protracted battle.
The leader of ISIS was reported to be among thousands of hardline militants still in the city, suggesting the group would go to great lengths to repel the coalition.
American officials believe some of ISIS's best fighters are in Mosul.
© Thomson Reuters 2016
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