Posted on Oct 23, 2016
The ISIS chemical weapons arsenal is weak but instills fear
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Evidence of the Islamic State group’s chemical weapons program has inspired fear, shaped military planning and prompted numerous U.S. airstrikes for the past two years.
Yet as U.S. and Iraq forces get underway with the battle for Mosul, the real threat of the extremist group effectively deploying chemical weapons is extremely limited, according to numerous top military officials.
“Right now, it has not been tactically or operationally significant at this particular point,” Army Gen. Joseph Votel, the head of U.S. Central Command, said recently.
“In many cases this is pretty low-level. … It’s not an overly sophisticated threat at this particular point. And yet it is out there and so we’ve got to continue to address that,” Votel told a meeting of defense experts at the Center for American Progress on Wednesday.
The Islamic State group, also known as ISIS or ISIL, has fired some shells containing crude chemical agents, mostly sulfur mustard or chlorine, which can potentially cause severe lung damage or death in overwhelming quantities. Several confirmed attacks targeted Iraqi Kurdish forces.
But ISIS’ efforts to weaponize those chemicals have been ineffective. U.S. military officials say none of the ISIS chemical weapons attacks have caused fatalities.
On Sept. 20, U.S. troops reported a possible mustard attack at Qayyarah West, an Iraqi-controlled air base where several hundred U.S. forces are helping Iraqi army units operate a logistics staging area for the Mosul operation.
But laboratory testing revealed the shell fragment in the attack did not contain any chemical weapons.
In the weeks leading up to the Mosul invasion, U.S. officials reported several strikes on ISIS chemical weapons facilities:
• On Oct. 13 a strike near Mosul targeted a chemical weapons facility.
• On Sept. 14, a strike near Al Huwayjah hit an ISIS chemical weapons storage facility.
• On Sept. 23, a strike hit near Qayyarah destroyed an ISIS chemical weapons factory.
U.S. military officials have repeatedly warned about the risk of ISIS chemical weapons. Both Iraq and Syria have operated chemical weapons programs and there are numerous industrial chemical facilities in ISIS-held territory.
U.S troops deployed to the area are trained in how to respond to such an attack and all units have access to face masks and full-body protective suits if needed.
To reassure the Iraqis, the U.S. military gave the Iraqi army more than 40,000 masks and more than 9,000 to the Kurdish peshmerga forces, U.S. officials said.
The U.S. military said last year that an airstrike killed an ISIS chemical weapons expert known as Abu Malik, who was also a chemical weapons engineer at Saddam Hussein's Muthana chemical weapons production facility.
The ISIS-made mustard agent is typically in a crude form, a powder mixed with oil in makeshift containers strapped to conventional munitions. ISIS has shown no evidence of producing mustard in its gas state, which would be a far more lethal form.
The Islamic State group makes the mustard agent in laboratories inside its territory in Iraq and Syria and there’s no evidence the group has imported it from other countries, military officials said.
High-grade chemical weapons could cause catastrophic causalities, making even the crude forms deeply disturbing.
“There is a psychological impact; we recognize the impact of a chemical round or a report of a chemical round landing next to coalition forces or U.S. forces and what that would mean,” Votel said.
“These are things we have to be aware of. This is an adaptive enemy. We respect them -- we don’t respect them as an ideology, but we respect them as an adversary."
Yet as U.S. and Iraq forces get underway with the battle for Mosul, the real threat of the extremist group effectively deploying chemical weapons is extremely limited, according to numerous top military officials.
“Right now, it has not been tactically or operationally significant at this particular point,” Army Gen. Joseph Votel, the head of U.S. Central Command, said recently.
“In many cases this is pretty low-level. … It’s not an overly sophisticated threat at this particular point. And yet it is out there and so we’ve got to continue to address that,” Votel told a meeting of defense experts at the Center for American Progress on Wednesday.
The Islamic State group, also known as ISIS or ISIL, has fired some shells containing crude chemical agents, mostly sulfur mustard or chlorine, which can potentially cause severe lung damage or death in overwhelming quantities. Several confirmed attacks targeted Iraqi Kurdish forces.
But ISIS’ efforts to weaponize those chemicals have been ineffective. U.S. military officials say none of the ISIS chemical weapons attacks have caused fatalities.
On Sept. 20, U.S. troops reported a possible mustard attack at Qayyarah West, an Iraqi-controlled air base where several hundred U.S. forces are helping Iraqi army units operate a logistics staging area for the Mosul operation.
But laboratory testing revealed the shell fragment in the attack did not contain any chemical weapons.
In the weeks leading up to the Mosul invasion, U.S. officials reported several strikes on ISIS chemical weapons facilities:
• On Oct. 13 a strike near Mosul targeted a chemical weapons facility.
• On Sept. 14, a strike near Al Huwayjah hit an ISIS chemical weapons storage facility.
• On Sept. 23, a strike hit near Qayyarah destroyed an ISIS chemical weapons factory.
U.S. military officials have repeatedly warned about the risk of ISIS chemical weapons. Both Iraq and Syria have operated chemical weapons programs and there are numerous industrial chemical facilities in ISIS-held territory.
U.S troops deployed to the area are trained in how to respond to such an attack and all units have access to face masks and full-body protective suits if needed.
To reassure the Iraqis, the U.S. military gave the Iraqi army more than 40,000 masks and more than 9,000 to the Kurdish peshmerga forces, U.S. officials said.
The U.S. military said last year that an airstrike killed an ISIS chemical weapons expert known as Abu Malik, who was also a chemical weapons engineer at Saddam Hussein's Muthana chemical weapons production facility.
The ISIS-made mustard agent is typically in a crude form, a powder mixed with oil in makeshift containers strapped to conventional munitions. ISIS has shown no evidence of producing mustard in its gas state, which would be a far more lethal form.
The Islamic State group makes the mustard agent in laboratories inside its territory in Iraq and Syria and there’s no evidence the group has imported it from other countries, military officials said.
High-grade chemical weapons could cause catastrophic causalities, making even the crude forms deeply disturbing.
“There is a psychological impact; we recognize the impact of a chemical round or a report of a chemical round landing next to coalition forces or U.S. forces and what that would mean,” Votel said.
“These are things we have to be aware of. This is an adaptive enemy. We respect them -- we don’t respect them as an ideology, but we respect them as an adversary."
The ISIS chemical weapons arsenal is weak but instills fear
Posted from militarytimes.comPosted in these groups: 
ISIS
ISIS
Posted 8 y ago
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From these incidents ,the the Veterans Administration is going to ask you in your questionnaire were you involved in this operation beverage called now in Iraq from 2016- 2017 and that will be a test case for decades to come to track the veterans and see if they have any issues. American veterans of Vietnam who are exposed to Agent Orange.
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SGT (Join to see)
I've always wondered if CBRN Soldiers from back in the day who had to take mustard injections ever got great compensation. I read a story once that one man didn't and his spread all-body.
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LTC (Join to see)
SGT (Join to see) -My dad received 100% compensation from the VA two years before he passed away in 2003 from Lung/Brain Cander after he had documentation showing that he was exposed to chlorine gas in 1951 as part of a CBRN training his asthma was really bad over the decades and because of the documentation he he got it but he held off until it was almost too late in 1999. So the a lesson of this is get it in time. don't think you don't deserve it because you may have my dad done this he probably could have gotten maximum coverage for the last 30 years prior to his death.
Originally he had 100% disability and he was released from the Army and given a disability rating of 10%. Only his determination to keep his documentation helped him. I have it now and it is a travesty we have seen too many times in the recent past.
Originally he had 100% disability and he was released from the Army and given a disability rating of 10%. Only his determination to keep his documentation helped him. I have it now and it is a travesty we have seen too many times in the recent past.
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SGT (Join to see)
LTC (Join to see) - That's a mindset that many don't wish to adapt or adapt too late.
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Thanks for letting us know the non-classified version of ISIS chemical capabilities SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL. I am glad my classmate and friend GEN Joe Votel weighed in on this topic. I trust his judgement implicitly.
FYI: I went thought the US Army NBC School in Vielseck, Germany in 1982 and was involved in planning exercises in the 21st century.
FYI: I went thought the US Army NBC School in Vielseck, Germany in 1982 and was involved in planning exercises in the 21st century.
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Look at all those chemical soldiers who were affected by low level residue from blowing up those bunkers after Desert Storm and they got really messed up so don't count out the effects on those soldiers for decades to come.
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