World

IS is using chlorine as a weapon, Australia’s Foreign Minister says

Julie Bishop says use of chlorine by Daish have revealed far more serious efforts in chemical weapons development

Reuters June 06, 2015

Julie Bishop says use of chlorine by Daish have revealed far more serious efforts in chemical weapons development. PHOTO: AFP

PERTH, AUSTRALIA:

Islamic State militants have used chlorine as a weapon and are recruiting highly trained technicians in a serious bid to develop chemical weapons, Australia’s Foreign Minister Julie Bishop warned.

In a speech to an international forum of nations that works to fight the spread of such weapons, Bishop said the rise of militant groups such as IS, also known as Daish, posed “one of the gravest security threats we face today.”

“Apart from some crude and small scale endeavors, the conventional wisdom has been that the terrorist intention to acquire and weaponize chemical agents has been largely aspirational,” Bishop told a meeting of the Australia Group in Perth. The speech on Friday was posted online.

“The use of chlorine by Daish, and its recruitment of highly technically trained professionals, including from the West, have revealed far more serious efforts in chemical weapons development,” she said.

“Daish is likely to have amongst its tens of thousands of recruits the technical expertise necessary to further refine precursor materials and build chemical weapons,” Bishop said.

The comments follow allegations by Iraqi Kurdish authorities that they have evidence that IS used chlorine gas against their peshmerga fighters in northern Iraq in January.

The Kurdish allegations that soil and clothing samples taken after an IS car bombing attempt contained levels of chlorine couldn't be independently confirmed.

Chlorine is a choking agent whose use as a chemical weapon dates back to World War One. It is banned under the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, which prohibits all use of toxic agents on the battlefield.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has been investigating allegations of dozens of recent chlorine gas attacks in Syrian villages, but it is being refused access to the sites by President Bashar al-Assad's government.

COMMENTS (1)

Naeem Khan | 9 years ago | Reply First of all we should all ask why we have come to this stage, why do we have these kind of outfits in the first place. They just did not spring up over night, it seems years of subjugation and humiliation of these Arabs and Muslims around the world by Western Colonial countries and even their own country's dictatorships supported by Western Powers particularly the Americans. We are seeing the reaction to years of mistreatment and still look the other way while this mistreatment goes on. The Western countries has always looked down on brown or black people and questioned their intelligence but it would not be too long that terrorists outfits like these will have chemical and even biological weapons. We need to combat the root causes of this tremendous discontent of these young generations, they have succumbed to certain ideology of past Islamic grandeur, justice and equal treatment for all, ideology just don't die with inflicting more violence. Julie Bishop should also tell the world another form of terrorism inflected by the Israelis on Arabs by using Cluster Bombs supplies by Western Nations. As long any kind of injustices and heavy handedness goes on and abetted by the Western powers and even by their own countries , outfits like ISIS and Taliban will be expanding and be a menace for all the peace loving countries and world peace.

Replying to X