Washington — The US expects Islamic State (IS) to use crude chemical weapons as it tries to repel an Iraqi-led offensive on the city of Mosul, US officials say, although it believes the group’s ability to develop such weapons is limited. US forces had begun to regularly collect shell fragments to test for possible chemical agents, given IS’s use of mustard agent in the months before Monday’s launch of the Mosul offensive, one official said. In a previously undisclosed incident, US forces confirmed the presence of a sulfur mustard agent on IS munition fragments on October 5, a second official said. IS had targeted local forces, not US or coalition troops. "Given IS’s reprehensible behaviour and flagrant disregard for international standards and norms, this event is not surprising," the second official said. US officials do not believe IS has been successful at developing chemical weapons with lethal effects, meaning that conventional weapons are still the most dangerous threat for ad...
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