ISIS Used “Poisonous Substances” in Village Shelling- Kurdish Officials
ISIS militants used “poisonous substances” during the shelling of a village in northern Iraq on Tuesday, a local governor said.
More than 40 people suffered partial choking and skin irritation in northern Iraq as mortar shells and Katyusha rockets filled with “poisonous substances” exploded in their village on Tuesday evening, fired from positions held by ISIS, local officials said on Wednesday.
None of the casualties died and five of them remain in hospital, said health officials in Taza, a mainly Shi’ite Turkmen village 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of the oil city of Kirkuk, in a region under Kurdish control.
“There were poisonous substances in these shells. We don’t know what,” Kirkuk province governor Najmuddin Kareem told reporters on visit to the village on Wednesday.
A commander of the Kurdish peshmerga forces in the region, Wasta Rasul, said a total of 24 shells and rockets were fired into Taza from the nearby Bashir area.
The attack comes just one day after the Kurdish militia group YPG stated that opposition fighters used yellow phosphorous in a chemical attack on the Sheikh Maqsood neighborhood of Aleppo, Syria, on Tuesday.
Also, reports said that US aircraft have begun targeting ISIS chemical weapons sites near Mosul, Iraq. It comes after an initial round of airstrikes aimed at diminishing the group’s ability to use mustard agent, according to CNN.
It is unclear whether the strikes conducted over the past several days have been successful. According to the news network, the strikes were aided by an ISIS detainee who provided vital information to the US military.
