Toxic smoke: Sulphur cloud from Iraq plant torched by IS kills 2

As many as 500 more civilians suffer breathing problems; US troops at nearby base forced to wear masks

KIRKUK/ QAYYARAH: Toxic fumes released when Islamic State (IS) militants torched a sulphur plant near Mosul have killed two Iraqi civilians, made many ill and forced US troops at a nearby base to wear masks.

Qayyarah hospital has checked at least 500 people complaining of breathing problems over the past two days but officials announced Saturday that the fire had been extinguished.

"Da’ish blew up the sulphur plant two days ago and that has led to the deaths of two people among the civilians in nearby villages," Iraqi General Qusay Hamid Kadhem told AFP, using the Arabic acronym for IS.

The senior officer of the interior ministry's elite rapid response force said "many others were injured as a result of the toxic smoke."

According to security and health sources in the area, where tens of thousands of Iraqi forces are involved in a massive offensive to wrest Mosul back from IS, the group torched at least part of the Mishraq sulphur factory on Wednesday.

The blast released toxic fumes that were seen and felt by residents in the area and, early on Saturday, by forces and reporters around Qayyarah, one of the main staging bases of the anti-IS operation south of Mosul.

On Saturday morning, a haze of white smoke covered the Qayyarah base, making anything more than a few hundred metres away difficult to see. It made people present in the area cough and their eyes water.

At the rudimentary health centre in Qayyarah, Doctor Khairi Awad said around 500 cases of people of all ages complaining of breathing problems had been recorded.

General Kadhem admitted that the toxic fumes were also having an impact on military operations: "Of course, this is affecting our planned progress."

A US official in Baghdad told reporters that American forces stationed at the main staging base of Qayyarah, south of Mosul, had taken out their gas masks as a precaution.

Meanwhile, Iraqi security forces battled for a second day Saturday with IS gunmen who infiltrated Kirkuk in a brazen raid that rattled the country as it ramped up an offensive to retake Mosul. A day after the shock attack on the Kurdish-controlled city, IS snipers and suspected suicide bombers were still at large, prompting Baghdad to send reinforcements. "We have 46 dead and 133 wounded, most of them members of the security services, as result of the clashes with Da’ish," an interior ministry brigadier general said.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 23^rd, 2016.