Iraqi Kurds say ISIL deployed chemical weapons against them

Iraqi Kurdish authorities said on Saturday they had evidence that the armed group Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) had used chlorine gas as a chemical weapon against their peshmerga fighters.

The Kurdistan Region Security Council (KRSC) of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region said in a statement that the peshmerga had taken soil and clothing samples after an ISIL suicide bombing in northern Iraq in January. It said laboratory analysis showed "the samples contained levels of chlorine that suggested the substance was used in weaponized form."

Chlorine is a choking agent that’s use as a chemical weapon dates back to the First World War. It is banned under the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, which prohibits all use of toxic agents on the battlefield.

"The fact ISIS relies on such tactics demonstrates it has lost the initiative and is resorting to desperate measures," the KRSC said in its statement.

The allegation could not be independently confirmed.

Peter Sawczak, spokesman for the Dutch-based Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, said: “We have not had a request from Iraq to investigate claims of use of chemical weapons in Iraq, and the OPCW cannot immediately verify the claims.”

Chlorine has been used “systematically” in the civil war in neighboring Syria, an OPCW fact-finding mission found last year. The OPCW would have to get its own samples to confirm the use of chemical weapons in a member state.

The KRSC said the analysis was carried out in a European Union-certified laboratory after it sent the soil and clothing samples to a "partner nation" in the U.S.-led coalition that is fighting ISIL in Iraq and Syria. However, it did not name the country.

Al Jazeera and Reuters