Earlier an Iraqi military officer claimed that Islamic State militants have launched a gas attack in a newly-liberated area in western Mosul in April.
The officer with the anti-terrorism forces said that the attack occurred the night before in the al-Abar neighborhood, when IS fired a rocked loaded with chlorine. He said seven soldiers suffered breathing problems and were treated in a nearby field clinic.
The officer spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to release information.
U.S.-backed Iraqi forces are currently battling IS militants in the more densely-populated western half of Mosul. Iraqi officials say more than half of western Mosul has been retaken. The extremists were driven out of the eastern half of Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, in January.
Although the use of toxic chemicals as weapons dates back thousands of years, the first large scale use of chemical weapons was during World War I.They were primarily used to demoralize, injure, and kill entrenched defenders, against whom the indiscriminate and generally very slow-moving or static nature of gas clouds would be most effective. The types of weapons employed ranged from disabling chemicals, such as tear gas, to lethal agents like phosgene, chlorine, and mustard gas. This chemical warfare was a major component of the first global war and first total war of the 20th century.
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