CIA Director John Brennan has said that Islamic State (IS) fighters have used chemical weapons and have the capability to make small quantities of chlorine and mustard gas, CBS News reported on Thursday.
“We have a number of instances where [IS] has used chemical munitions on the battlefield,” Brennan told CBS News, which released excerpts of an interview to air in full on the 60 Minutes news program tomorrow.
The network added that he told 60 Minutes the CIA believes that the IS group has the ability to make small amounts of mustard or chlorine gas for weapons.
“There are reports that [IS] has access to chemical precursors and munitions that they can use,” Brennan said.
Brennan also warned of the possibility that the Islamic State group could seek to export the weapons to the West for financial gain.
“I think there’s always the potential for that. This is why it’s so important to cut off the various transportation routes and smuggling routes that they have used,” he said.
When asked if there were “American assets on the ground” searching for possible chemical weapons caches or labs, Brennan replied: “US intelligence is actively involved in being a part of the efforts to destroy [IS] and to get as much insight into what they have on the ground inside of Syria and Iraq.”
The release of the interview excerpts comes two days after similar comments from US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper before a US congressional committee.
“[IS] has also used toxic chemicals in Iraq and Syria, including the blister agent sulfur mustard,” Clapper told lawmakers on Tuesday.
He said it was the first time an extremist group had produced and used a chemical warfare agent in an attack since Japan’s Aum Supreme Truth cult carried out a deadly sarin attack during rush hour in the Tokyo subway in 1995.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and rebel forces have accused each other of using chemical agents in the nearly five-year war that has killed more than 250,000 people.
After an August 2013 sarin attack outside Damascus that much of the international community blamed on al-Assad’s government, the regime agreed to turn over its chemical arsenal.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons — which oversaw the dangerous removal and elimination of Syria’s avowed stockpile — now says that the declared arsenal has been completely destroyed.
However, the global arms watchdog has still warned of the continued use of mustard, sarin and chlorine gas in the conflict, without blaming the regime, the rebels or the IS group for use of the weapons, which are banned under international law.
Last year, officials in the autonomous Iraqi region of Kurdistan said blood tests had shown that IS fighters used mustard agent in an attack on Kurdish peshmerga forces in August last year.
Thirty-five peshmerga fighters were exposed and some were taken abroad for treatment, officials said.
At the time of the attack, the Wall Street Journal cited US officials as saying they believed IS had used mustard agent.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese