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Iraqi Kurdistan says can prove ISIL used CWs

Iraqi Kurdish forces stand at the Khubbaz oil field, some 25 km west of the northern city of Kirkuk, as smoke billows in the background, February 2, 2015. (© AFP)

The government of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region says it is in possession of evidence that shows the Takfiri ISIL terrorist group used chlorine gas against Peshmerga forces.

The Security Council of Kurdistan Regional Government said in a Saturday statement that samples of clothing and soil from the site of a January 23 attack by the ISIL were examined by an independent laboratory in an unnamed country that is a member of the US-led coalition purportedly fighting ISIL.

The examination discovered chlorine traces in the samples, it said.

The statement further noted that the purported truck bomb attack occurred on a road between Iraq’s militant-held city of Mosul and the Syrian border, as Peshmerga forces fought to capture a key supply line used by the extremist militants.

The council said Kurdish forces later found “around 20 gas canisters” that the truck involved in the assault had been carrying.

“The fact [that] ISIL relies on such tactics demonstrates it has lost the initiative and is resorting to desperate measures,” the Kurdish government said.

Chlorine, an industrial chemical, could suffocate its victims to death when used as a weapon.

In October 2014, Iraqi officials said ISIL terrorists might have used chlorine-filled cylinders during fighting in late September that year in the towns of Balad and Duluiya.

The ISIL terrorists currently control parts of Iraq and the neighboring Syria, where they have committed heinous crimes.

Speaking from Baghdad, Press TV correspondent Rahshan Saglam also said the ISIL terror group has purportedly resorted to the use of the deadly chlorine gas against Iraqi troops and their allied Shia and Sunni fighters during the Arab country’s latest operation against the militants near the city of Tikrit as orange smoke was seen after attacks carried out by the extremists.

In reference to the January 23 attack against Kurdish forces, she added that the Peshmerga fighters who had been present at the scene of the assault experienced symptoms of chlorine gas inhalation including nausea and weakness after the ISIL bombing.

MR/HJL/SS/HMV


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