A report has revealed that the US government was well aware that the Iraqi facility captured by the Islamic State (IS) in June most likely contained deadly chemical weapons.
According to the New York Times, the Huffington Post's report suggesting that IS may have gained control of chemical weapons in Iraq was based on a report released Sunday by the Global Research in International Affairs Center at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel.
The research organization's analysis suggested that after seizing the former chemical weapons facility of Muthanna in Iraq, the IS then used the weapons against Kurdish soldiers in the Syrian region of Kobani.
The New York Times conducted interviews with American soldiers and analyzed previously undisclosed government documents to confirm that the US government knew that chemical weapons were being used against soldiers by the IS in Iraq since 2003.
The newspaper confirmed US soldiers had come across mustard shells at Muthanna in 2008, and said three Times journalists saw old chemical stocks there in 2013.
The New York Times report further said that at least six Marines were exposed to mustard gas at Muthanna on July 11, 2008, and that the US government kept secret a lot of incidents of chemical agent exposure throughout the Iraq war.