UN Team Accuses ISIS of Using Chemical Weapons in Iraq

UNESCO Director Audrey Azoulay during her participation, Monday, in the unveiling of a bell specially designed for the “Al-Saa’a Church” in Mosul, which ISIS occupied for three years. (AFP)
UNESCO Director Audrey Azoulay during her participation, Monday, in the unveiling of a bell specially designed for the “Al-Saa’a Church” in Mosul, which ISIS occupied for three years. (AFP)
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UN Team Accuses ISIS of Using Chemical Weapons in Iraq

UNESCO Director Audrey Azoulay during her participation, Monday, in the unveiling of a bell specially designed for the “Al-Saa’a Church” in Mosul, which ISIS occupied for three years. (AFP)
UNESCO Director Audrey Azoulay during her participation, Monday, in the unveiling of a bell specially designed for the “Al-Saa’a Church” in Mosul, which ISIS occupied for three years. (AFP)

The United Nations Investigative Team for Accountability of ISIS (UNITAD) revealed in a report that the terrorist group used chemical weapons in Iraq.

According to the report, which was submitted to the UN Security Council on Tuesday for discussion, ISIS used chemical weapons in the areas it controlled in Iraq and Syria between 2014 and 2019.

Key lines of inquiry during this period concerned evidence of ISIS financial, procurement and logistical arrangements and linkages to command elements, as well as an expanded understanding of suspected sites of manufacturing, production and weapon use across Iraq.

“Evidence suggests that ISIS manufactured and produced chemical rockets and mortars, chemical ammunition for rocket-propelled grenades, chemical warheads and improvised explosive devices,” the report said.

“Furthermore, the ISIS program involved the development, testing, weaponization and deployment of a range of agents, including aluminum phosphide, chlorine, clostridium botulinum, cyanide, nicotine, ricin and thallium sulfate.”

The report said that evidence, including records, of ISIS training senior operatives on the use of chemical weapons, including chemical dispersion devices, were examined.

The Team affirmed that it attended incident sites, met with affected communities and Iraqi authorities and preserved substantial volumes of testimonial, digital and documentary evidence, noting that it focused its efforts on the attack against Tazah Khurmatu on March 8, 2016.

Dr. Moataz Mohieddine, strategic expert on armed groups, told Asharq Al-Awsat that the United States has repeatedly declared ISIS’s ability to manufacture chemical weapons and use them in its battles, especially in those to liberate Mosul.

He indicated that the US discovered sums of samples of these weapons that were seized by ISIS militants from the US and the Iraqi army’s weapons warehouses.

“ISIS former leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi supervised the formation of cells that depended on the establishment of a chemical and biological arsenal,” Mohieddine explained.

He pointed to a report by The Washington Post that underlined Iraqi Kurdish intelligence reports that shed new light on the role played by Salih al-Sabawi, a mysterious figure known within the terrorist group as Abu Malik, and the ambitious plan by ISIS leaders to develop and use weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and abroad.

Sabawi was part of a former cell that worked in Iraqi chemical facilities and in the production of weapons of mass destruction that the former army used in its war against the Kurds and Iran, the strategist noted.

He affirmed that when arrested by the US forces, Sabawi said that ISIS collected a lot of chemical materials from the weapons left behind by the Iraqi army and the US in large areas of Anbar and Mosul.

Mohieddine further stated that the Iraqi forces captured a very large cell that cooperated with ISIS after the liberation battles.

“The cell explained the steps of the group’s development of the chemical weapons industry and how its materials were transported from central and northern Iraq to Syria as well.”

He named an Iraqi engineer, Abrar al-Kubaisi, who helped ISIS manufacture the toxic substance, ricin, in simple laboratories.

Caption: UNESCO Director Audrey Azoulay during her participation, Monday, in the unveiling of a bell specially designed for the “Al-Saa’a Church” in Mosul, which ISIS occupied for three years. (AFP)



Lebanon Elects Army Chief as New President

The Lebanese Parliament building a day before a session to elect the Lebanese president, in Beirut, Lebanon, 08 January 2025. (EPA)
The Lebanese Parliament building a day before a session to elect the Lebanese president, in Beirut, Lebanon, 08 January 2025. (EPA)
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Lebanon Elects Army Chief as New President

The Lebanese Parliament building a day before a session to elect the Lebanese president, in Beirut, Lebanon, 08 January 2025. (EPA)
The Lebanese Parliament building a day before a session to elect the Lebanese president, in Beirut, Lebanon, 08 January 2025. (EPA)

Lebanon's parliament elected army chief Joseph Aoun head of state on Thursday, filling the vacant presidency with a general who enjoys US approval and showing the diminished sway of the Iran-backed Hezbollah group after its devastating war with Israel.
The outcome reflected shifts in the power balance in Lebanon and the wider Middle East, with Hezbollah badly pummelled from last year's war, and its Syrian ally Bashar al-Assad toppled in December.
The presidency, reserved for a Maronite Christian in Lebanon's sectarian power-sharing system, has been vacant since Michel Aoun's term ended in October 2022, with deeply divided factions unable to agree on a candidate able to win enough votes in the 128-seat parliament.
Aoun fell short of the 86 votes needed in a first round vote, but crossed the threshold with 99 votes in a second round, according to Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, after lawmakers from Hezbollah and its Shiite ally the Amal Movement backed him.
Momentum built behind Aoun on Wednesday as Hezbollah's long preferred candidate, Suleiman Franjieh, withdrew and declared support for the army commander, and as French envoy shuttled around Beirut, urging his election in meetings with politicians, three Lebanese political sources said.
Aoun's election is a first step towards reviving government institutions in a country which has had neither a head of state nor a fully empowered cabinet since Aoun left office.
Lebanon, its economy still reeling from a devastating financial collapse in 2019, is in dire need of international support to rebuild from the war, which the World Bank estimates cost the country $8.5 billion.
Lebanon's system of government requires the new president to convene consultations with lawmakers to nominate a Sunni Muslim prime minister to form a new cabinet, a process that can often be protracted as factions barter over ministerial portfolios.
Aoun has a key role in shoring up a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel which was brokered by Washington and Paris in November. The terms require the Lebanese military to deploy into south Lebanon as Israeli troops and Hezbollah withdraw forces.
Aoun, 60, has been commander of the Lebanese army since 2017.