Isis weapons engineer killed in airstrike in Iraq, claims US military
|
Version 0 of 1. For the first time since the US began its war against Islamic State (Isis), the military named a senior Isis militant it claims to have killed in an airstrike near the Iraqi city of Mosul on Friday. The militant, identified by US Central Command only as Abu Malik, is said to have been a chemical weapons expert for Isis and a veteran of the former Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein’s illicit weapons programs. Central Command, which commands the daily barrage of airstrikes against Isis in Iraq and Syria, has never before identified a militant it has killed. Though the Pentagon claims to have killed 6,000 Isis fighters since the August airstrikes began, officials have downplayed claims they are specifically targeting Isis leadership figures, raising questions about the degree of visibility the US has into the group. In a statement late on Friday, Central Command claimed Abu Malik was a “chemical weapons engineer” at the Muthanna chemical weapons plant who joined an earlier incarnation of Isis, al-Qaeda in Iraq, in 2005. While the command boasted that Abu Malik had provided expertise in weaponizing deadly chemicals, it stopped far short of claiming his death dealt the group a lasting blow. “His death is expected to temporarily degrade and disrupt the terrorist network and diminish Isil’s [Isis’s] ability to potentially produce and use chemical weapons against innocent people,” Central Command said. Isis has been said to fabricate crude chemical bombs that do not qualify as chemical weapons. Kurdish forces fighting Isis outside the Syrian city of Kobane in October reported seeing blisters emerge on their skin and experiencing vomiting and respiratory impairment, symptoms consistent with but not definitively indicative of chemical exposure. The Iraqi government has also claimed Isis used chlorine gas against policemen. In June, Isis forces took control of Muthanna, a complex formerly crucial to Saddam’s chemical weapons production and where decrepit chemical warheads are believed to be buried. The Pentagon believes Isis does not have access to those weapons. The location of the lethal strike, in Mosul, is significant as well. US commanders have described retaking Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, as a critical test of the war, and potentially a decisive battle for eradicating Isis in Iraq. Mosul has been in Isis’s uncontested control since June, a seizure setting into motion Barack Obama’s resumption of an Iraq war that he campaigned to end. In recent days, US airstrikes have increasingly struck targets near the city, according to Central Command. Pentagon officials say that they herald a ground offensive, led by Iraqi forces, that they do not wish to rush but expect in the coming months. |