News Islamic State working to develop chemical weapons: Australia

[brassmonkey]

Sydney (AFP) - The Islamic State group has shown it is prepared to use chemical weapons and is likely to have among its recruits the technical expertise to develop them, Australia's Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said.

In a speech late Friday, Bishop said Australia had no doubt that the Syrian regime had used toxic chemicals including sarin and chlorine over the past four years.

But she said apart from some crude and small scale endeavours, the conventional wisdom had been that the Islamic State group's intention to acquire and weaponise chemical agents was largely aspirational.

"The use of chlorine by Daesh, and its recruitment of highly technically trained professionals, including from the West, have revealed far more serious efforts in chemical weapons development," she said in Perth, using the Arabic acronym for IS.

"Daesh is likely to have amongst its tens of thousands of recruits the technical expertise necessary to further refine precursor materials and build chemical weapons."

The use of chlorine in homemade bombs has been reported in several parts of Iraq and Syria, with car and roadside bombs easy to rig with chlorine canisters.

And in March, Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan government said that analysis of soil and clothing samples showed that IS used chlorine gas in a car bomb attack in January.

In a speech to the Australia Group, which works to deny licences for the export of chemical and biological-weapon related materials, Bishop said a global effort was needed to prevent the proliferation and use of the toxic chemicals.

Speaking of the use of chemical weapons in Syria, she said: "The fact that atrocities such as this continue to occur shows that we must remain vigilant to the threat of chemical and biological weapons."

"Export controls and their effective implementation are as important as ever as threats to global security, continue to evolve."

Bishop said the rise of global terror groups such as IS was one of the gravest security threats faced by the world.

Bishop has previously warned that the numbers of Australians seeking to go overseas to fight with IS was not declining, with more than 100 fighting alongside jihadist groups in Iraq and Syria.

Australia has introduced a series of national security measures over the past few months to combat the threat, including criminalising travel to terror hotspots.

Islamic State working to develop chemical weapons: Australia - Yahoo News

[Joshua G]

hope they dont cross obamas red line.

[j3rkules]

Dear IS, ISIL, IS??, or any other nutty religious extremist group contemplating the use of banned weapons. Please review American history sections concerning world WWII and the elimination of Iraq. Right now, you are a nuisance. You put enough fear in the hearts of the average U.S. citizen that he takes no notice of the trillion dollars we spend annually on defense and security. Take your nonsense to the next level and prepare for a scorched earth response with weapons so accurate that the middle east will resemble a checker board with our friends, and where you used to be, occupying different colors.

[AdultKing]

ISIL control a large chunk of Syria and Iraq. The current strategy of combining air strikes with locally trained shi'ite militia is only going to deepen the problem.

Despite the awesome air power of coalition countries, these sand people have managed to hold on to some of the most strategically desirable locations. They already control Anbar provence, this gives them perfect supply lines back to Syria.

I don't know what the solution is, but this conflict will lead to the redrawing of the maps of the middle east.

[celandina]

Didn't US Army sent them some live anthrax ?
A.k.a. Come back Saddam all is forgiven

[AdultKing]

Originally Posted by celandina

Didn't US Army sent them some live anthrax ?

You mean Australia, yes they sent us some live Anthrax, which I guess is only fair after we sent Guy Sebastian to Eurovision.