Chemical weaponsISIL uses toxic chemicals in its defense of Mosul

Published 25 October 2016

In the run up to the U.S.-led coalition campaign to liberate Mosul, U.S. officials warned that ISIS would likely use chemical weapons to slow down the progress of coalition forces and terrorize the residents. Last Thursday ISIS took the first step in its chemical strategy by setting ablaze the Mishraq Chemical plant and sulphur mine, located thirty km south of Mosul. The toxic cloud includes lethal sulphur dioxide and hydrogen sulphide. When combined with residue from burning oil wells, it is deadly for people caught in the open or without gas masks. Military experts say health effects from the toxic fumes from oil and sulphur will likely subside in about eighteen months, but the toxic clouds could harm much of the plant and animal life in the area and make it difficult for local farmers to return to their fields until then.

In the run up to the U.S.-led coalition campaign to liberate Mosul, U.S. officials warned that ISIS would likely use chemical weapons to slow down the progress of coalition forces and terrorize the residents. Last Thursday ISIS took the first step in its chemical strategy by setting ablaze the Mishraq Chemical plant and sulphur mine, located thirty km south of Mosul.

The plant and mine were within the defense perimeter around the city held by ISIS fighters, but the advancing Iraqi and Kurdish forces pushed ISIS out of the external defense perimeter into the city, and the jihadists set the plant and mine on fire before retreating.

The Financial Times reports that so far, nine people have died and around 1,000 have been injured by the toxic cloud.

The toxic cloud includes lethal sulphur dioxide and hydrogen sulphide. When combined with residue from burning oil wells, it is deadly for people caught in the open or without gas masks.

The cloud now stretches 20-30 km to the south, but because of the wind pattern, it has been hovering over mostly sparsely populated area. If the wind changes to an eastward direction, there is a risk that the Kurdish capital Erbil, some sixty km away, could be affected.

Military experts say that ISIS’s use of chemical weapons in its desperate attempt to keep hold of the city was only to be expected, and that the organization is emulating the use of chemical weapons by the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria – a strategy which have helped keep Assad in power.

In August 2013 the Syrian rebels closed in on Damascus and the city was on the verge of being overrun, but the Syrian military dropped up to 1000kg of the nerve agent Sarin on Sunni neighborhoods supporting the rebels, killing 1,500 people and injuring hundreds more and the rebels’ attack was blunted.

The attack led to an agreement to dismantle Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal and production facilities under international supervision. Syria, in violation of the agreement, has kept some sarin gas munitions – and the Assad regime has been regularly using chlorine, which was not included in the 2013 agreement, to attack Sunni civilians and rebel positions.

During the past year the Assad regime has increased its use of chlorine barrel bombs, dropping them on Sunni towns and neighborhoods in order to force Sunni residents to flee, making those towns and neighborhoods easier to govern for his Alawite and Shi’a forces.