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| Iraqi soldiers wearing gas masks hold precursors used to make chemical weapons. |
The Iraqi military announced today that it arrested five members of an al Qaeda cell that was seeking to manufacture chemical weapons, including sarin nerve gas, and plotting to conduct attacks within Iraq, Europe, and North America.
The Defense Ministry announced that it arrested the five members of the al Qaeda in Iraq cell and raided two factories in Baghdad that were used to research and manufacture the deadly chemical agents. The arrests were made with the help of undisclosed foreign intelligence services.
The chemical weapons cell was seeking to produce sarin as well as mustard blistering agents. The group had acquired some of the precursor chemicals as well as the formulas needed to manufacture the agents.
According to the Defense Ministry's spokesman, the cell was plotting to use remotely-piloted model aircraft to spray some of the chemical weapons sometime next week as Shia mourners commemorated the death of Imam Kadhum.
The cell also had contacts with a network that would have attempted to smuggle the chemical weapons for use in the United States, Canada, and Europe, the Defense Ministry said.
The report of an al Qaeda cell in possession of chemical agents is the second from the Middle East in the past two days. Yesterday, Turkish newspapers reported that members of an Al Nusrah Front cell were in possession of sarin gas, and were planning to conduct attacks at the Incirlik Air Base in Adana, and in Gaziantep, a city near Turkey's border with Syria. Other reports said that the Al Nusrah Front cell was planning to use the deadly nerve gas inside Syria. The reports have not been confirmed by the Turkish government.
The Al Nusrah Front for the People in the Levant is al Qaeda's affiliate in Syria. The group was formed by al Qaeda in Iraq, and its leader has openly sworn allegiance to Ayman al Zawahiri, al Qaeda's emir. The Al Nusrah Front is one of al Qaeda's most dangerous affiliates. More that 10,000 fighters are estimated to be in its ranks, and the group is said to be absorbing entire units from the so-called secular Free Syrian Army.
Al Qaeda in Iraq has attempted to construct crude chemical weapons in the past, and has employed such weapons on the battlefield. In 2007, al Qaeda in Iraq launched more than a dozen chlorine suicide bomb attacks in Baghdad, Anbar province, and Diyala province. The chlorine gas strikes killed 32 Iraqis and poisoned over 600 more.
In Syria, the Al Nusrah Front is suspected of launching a chlorine gas attack in March of this year. Twenty-six Syrians, including 16 Syrian soldiers, were killed in the attack.
Al Qaeda has long sought to place chemical weapons in its arsenal. In 2002, CNN found videos of al Qaeda experimenting with chemical weapons at the Darunta camp near the city of Jalalabad in Nangarhar province, Afghanistan. The video showed al Qaeda members experimenting with a gas thought to be sarin or another nerve agent on dogs. Formulas to make sarin were also found at the camp.
Sources:
Iraq Smashes Al Qaeda 'Poison Gas Cell', SKY News
Iraq foils 'al-Qaeda nerve gas plot', Al Jazeera
Disturbing scenes of death show capability with chemical gas, CNN
Reports claim Al Nusrah Front members in Turkey were planning sarin gas attacks, Threat Matrix