Mosul: In fresh cause for horror, the Islamic State (IS) group is advancing its research in chemical weapons by testing homemade chlorine and mustard gas on prisoners in densely populated areas.
ISIS is reported to have set up laboratories in built-up neighbourhoods in the heart of its so-called caliphate to avoid being targeted by coalition air strikes, says a report in the Telegraph.
ISIS has a special unit for chemical weapons research made up of Iraqi scientists who worked on weapons programmes under Saddam Hussein, as well as foreign experts.
The head of the unit, Sleiman Daoud al-Afari, was captured during a raid by US forces outside Mosul and has now divulged information on the plans of the terror group to produce chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
Al-Afari has now been replaced by Abu Shaima, an Iraqi doctor who worked at the University of Baghdad during Saddam’s reign.
Shaima has moved the chemical operations of ISIS away from its main laboratories at the universities of Mosul and Tel Afar, into residential areas to protect them against aerial attacks by US-led forces.
Mohandseen, a prominently Christian neighbourhood until ISIS seized the city, has now been occupied by ISIS terrorists who are using several houses to conduct deadly experiments. ISIS has already been testing on rabbits and dogs, who after death have been thrown into rubbish bins on Mohandseen streets.
ISIS has also been carrying out experiments on prisoners they are holding at a secret jail in al-Andalus, in the Nineveh governorate of Mosul, to test the toxicity of chemicals. Residents near the prison have reported breathing difficulties and children developing severe rashes.
The terrorists have seized large quantities of industrial chlorine and are believed to have the expertise to make mustard gas. They are also feared to have captured chemical weapon stocks from Bashar al-Assad’s regime across the border in Syria.
ISIS has already used chemical weapons against Kurdish Peshmerga forces in northern Iraq and Syria and is expected to use them when the western alliance attempts to retake Mosul.
