Diplomat: Islamic State used mustard gas against Kurdish fighters

Islamic State terrorists employed mustard gas against Kurdish fighters during battles in Iraqi Kurdistan last August, an unnamed diplomat confirmed Monday, Reuters reported.

This marks the first documented use of chemical weapons in Iraq since the fall of strongman Saddam Hussein in December 2003, according to a source at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Reuters said.

Samples tested for the chemical, which causes burning to the eyes, skin and respiratory tract, came back positive after 35 Kurdish militants had become ill while fighting IS near Erbil, northwest of Baghdad and the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq.

Reuters also quoted an official as saying that the issue will likely be discussed when the OPCW Executive Council meets again in a month.

According to Reuters, experts are unclear as to how Islamic State could have acquired the chemical weapons, or whether the group has access to more.

Another diplomat told Reuters that the mustard gas could have come from a Syrian stockpile, which would point to the Syrian regime having concealed parts of its own chemical weapons program that was dismantled three years ago under international observers.

“If Syria has indeed given up its chemical weapons to the international community, it is only the part that has been declared to the OPCW and the declaration was obviously incomplete,” the diplomat told Reuters.