ISIS jihadists use prisoners as guinea pigs to test chemical weapons
The heir apparent to Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, is urging followers of ISIS to launch deadly attacks on civilians during the Muslim holiday season known as Ramadan, which lasts an entire month.
Adnani boasted that the so-called “lone wolf attacks” in the United States and European nations were considered “dearer to [ISIS commanders] than the biggest combat action” in both Iraq and Syria, according to the Homeland Security News Wire on Monday.
Probably one of the most troubling aspects of this latest counter-terrorism report is the claim that in the face of sustained attacks by the U.S. backed rebels, Russia, and other military forces, ISIS found it necessary to move its chemical weapons labs to densely populated residential areas in Mosul, a trick perfected by Hamas in the Gaza Strip in its battle against the Israelis.
The HSNW report also mentions that ISIS is testing homemade chlorine and mustard gas on its prisoners held in different facilities throughout the city of Mosul and the surrounding areas. While the mainstream news media in the United States barely covers the subject, ISIS has been working on chemical weapons for quite a while, relying on the expertise of scientists who served Iraq’s late dictator, Saddam Hussein, and they are also recruiting Europeans with chemical degrees from leading European universities.
The Iraqi government-controlled media reports that residents of al-Mohandseen — at one time a prosperous area thanks to the wealthy Christians who live in Muslim neighborhood — during the last few weeks were evicted from several mansion-sized houses in the neighborhood, and that large unmarked trucks have been parked outside. More recently, according to reports, residents observed dozens of dead dogs and rabbits in nearby rubbish containers.
Meanwhile ISIS fighters detonated several IEDs (improvised explosive devices) that killed more than 140 victims in Syria’s Jableh and Tartous, in the Assad regime’s Alawite-controlled coastal heartland. Western intelligence services now estimate that more than a quarter of all Alawite men of fighting age had been killed. Islamists regard the Alawites as heretics.
U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, following his trip to the Middle East shared his observations with an audience at George Washington University: “A worldwide terrorist exodus is underway, and we are woefully unprepared to deal with it,” he said.
“We are not winning this war. Violent extremists are not on the run, as the president says. They are on the march,” he said. McCaul worked as an attorney and a federal prosecutor before entering politics. He was the Chief of Counterterrorism and National Security for Texas’s branch of the US Attorney’s office also worked under the Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Section.
