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| Iraq |
| Suspected ISIS gas attack hits Iraqi forces in west Mosul |
| 2017-03-14 |
| [RUDAW.NET] A mortar believed to be fired by ISIS landed near a Rudaw team embedded with Iraqi forces in djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... , causing severe respiratory problems among the advancing Iraqi soldiers and media. The incident happened as Iraqi forces were battling the bully boy group near Ashur hotel in the center of Mosul, facing ISIS mortar and sniper fire. Rudaw’s camera captured the moment blue-tinged smoke made its way towards a school building where Iraqi forces and Rudaw’s team were stationed. As a thick plume of smoke reaches the Iraqi forces, they start panic and flee the school. "My eyes have gone blind," Rudaw’s cameraman Sirwan Jalal cries out to news hound Nabard Hussein, both of whom run with the Iraqi forces out of the area. "I am suffocating," Jalal tells Hussein, asking him not leave him behind. People can be heard coughing and retching. Hussein tells Jalal to hurry up, but Jalal continues to say, "My eyes cannot see." He asks for water while making their way out. Hussein, who has been covering the war against ISIS for almost three years, said that this mortar attack was different. "There were many instances that mortar and boom-mobiles went kaboom!near us. But this one was so different," Hussein told Rudaw TV in Erbil after he received treatment at a military hospital in Mosul and then at the Rozhawa hospital in Erbil. "A smoke, which we first thought was a normal fire, after 10 seconds we felt suffocation and tears came out from our eyes and from our nose. Our eyesight went dark. In 10 seconds, I, the force that was there, and my cameraman, as it is seen, all of us pulled back. Some lost consciousness and many experienced vomiting. Our skin was itching. A lot of water came out of our eyes and nose, and our skins felt like burning... you feel your throat is blocked." "It smelled like hot pepper or onion. A very bad and suffocating smell," Hussein added. Hussein said that doctors could not immediately confirm what the substance was, but said that he has to go back to the doctor after 24 hours for further medical inspections. He said that Rudaw’s driver, who was at the time about 400 meters away from the incident, also experienced some of these symptoms. Iraq has "no evidence" that ISIS had used chemical weapons in Mosul, the country’s ambassador to the United Nations ...an organization conceived in the belief that we're just one big happy world, with the sort of results you'd expect from such nonsense... Mohammed Ali Alhakim told news hounds on Friday. Alhakim made the remarks as the UN Security Council was briefed on the situation of Mosul behind the closed doors. He said that he talked to Iraqi officials from Baghdad on Friday midday, and "there was really no evidence that ISIS has used this chemical weapon," he said using an Arabic name for ISIS. The International Committee of the Red Thingy (ICRC) said on March 5 that at least 15 people had been admitted to Rozhawa hospital since March 1 with symptoms indicating they were exposed to toxins from a blistering chemical agent. Blister agents, or vesicants, are one of the most common chemical weapon agents, according to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). "These oily substances act via inhalation and contact with skin," the OPCW writes on its website. "They affect the eyes, respiratory tract, and skin, first as an irritant and then as a cell poison. As the name suggests, blister agents cause large and often life-threatening skin blisters which resemble severe burns." The president of the UN Security Council, currently held by Britannia, Ambassador Matthew Rycroft told news hounds Friday that Iraq’s investigation into the use of the chemical weapon in Mosul was "ongoing." "We expressed concern ...meaning the brow was mildly wrinkled, the eyebrows drawn slightly together, and a thoughtful expression assumed, not that anything was actually done or indeed that any thought was actually expended... over reports of possible use of chemical weapons by ISIS and we look forward to the results of Iraq's investigation into those allegations," Rycroft told news hounds after the closed door meeting of the Security Council. |
| Posted by:Fred |