Defense intelligence agencies have confirmed that Islamic State terrorists have used chemical weapons in attacks in Iraq and Syria, according to defense officials.
Pentagon officials are aware of rocket and mortar attacks using the blistering agent mustard after samples from four locations in the region were analyzed, said defense officials familiar with details of the assessment.
Few details have been released of the confirmed use of chemical arms. However, officials said the chemical agent appears to have been manufactured from chemicals obtained by the Islamic State (IS), also known as ISIS or ISIL, and did not appear to be from current or older chemical weapons stockpiles kept in either Syria or Iraq.
Elissa Smith, a Pentagon spokeswoman, declined to comment on intelligence or operational matters. But Smith told the Free Beacon: “Let us be clear: any use by any party, be it state or non-state actor, of a chemical as a weapon of any kind is an abhorrent act.”
“Given the alleged behavior of ISIL and other such groups in the region, any such flagrant disregard for international standards and norms is reprehensible,” she said.
The fact that non-state actors such as IS may be further considering the use of chemical arms as weapons of war and terror “is a haunting symptom of the conditions created by the Assad regime when they flagrantly disregard international prohibitions against the use of chemicals as a weapon.”
These are the people who find it amusing to come up with the most hideous method to torture a kill anyone who disagrees with them. The only thing that would keep them from using chemical or any other weapons is that they don’t have any. Unfortunately, there are plenty of idiots that let their weapons (weapons, in many cases, that were supplies to them by even bigger idiots) get captured. If we don’t deal with these monsters using decisive and aggressive force very soon, the problem may become unmanageable by anyone.