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Clapper; ISIS is experimenting with chemical weapons

by Jonn Lilyea••22

Fox News reports that Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he’s been able to confirm that ISIS has been experimenting with mustard gas in Iraq and Syria;

“[The Syrian government] has used chemicals against the opposition on multiple occasions since Syria joined the Chemical Weapons Convention. ISIL has also used toxic chemicals in Iraq and Syria, including the blister agent Sulfur mustard,” Clapper said.

He said this marks the first time an extremist group has produced and used a “chemical warfare agent in an attack since Aum Shinrikyo used sarin in Japan in 1995,” referring to the Tokyo subway terror attack that year.

Fox News previously reported on ISIS’ potential experimentation with chemical weapons. Photos taken by the Kurds in northern Iraq last summer and reviewed by Fox News showed burns and blistering on skin following exposure to “odorless, colorless” agents absorbed through the clothing. A doctor who was in northern Iraq last year said he treated Kurdish fighters whom ISIS used as “lab rats for WMD,” adding that the variety of burns and illnesses suggested that “mustard gas, precursors, as well as neurotoxic acids” were being tested.

I guess that because no one is really committed to destroying this cancer on our planet, we can expect them to get better, or worse, at killing large numbers of people. They don’t seem constrained by any sort of morality or fairness, so the longer that we score only pin prick victories over ISIS, we can expect them to become more ruthless. They have no trouble using methods that are a thousand years old, so why wouldn’t they be able to find acceptable tactics from a hundred years ago?

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22 thoughts on “Clapper; ISIS is experimenting with chemical weapons”

  2. This is not a repeat from 2003.

    Chemical Weapons in Iraq and Syria? nope, not at all.
    Trust me.
    /rolls eyes.

  3. Yep, I was in the hot seat at AFCENT HQ as the Emergency Manager in 2012 when Syria decided that our red line didn’t mean shit. I can’t say I’m surprised at this news at all.

  4. I wonder just how much longer it will be until they try to execute a chemical attack on U.S. Soil like the Aum Shinrikyo cult did in Tokyo?

    1. The risk level has not changed much. This was always a threat.

      Chemical weapon attacks by terrorists have not been more effective than bombs and add an unnecessary level of complexity to the attack.

      So bombs are just more feasible and effective in more ways and more locations.

      There are circumstances/locations where a chemical attack would be very effective and that risk has remained persistent.

  6. The reality behind every JV team is that it possesses a few future starters, and those future starters are just as dedicated and just as talented as your current group.

    Obama and company miscalculated the capability of this group rather completely. No surprise there really because everyone likes to downplay the realities behind what appears to be a group struggling for identity. The difference here of course is that this group found its identity quickly and isn’t afraid to support what they believe with their lives.

    The question becomes what does the US do with respect to containing or reversing this group and to what end?

    It would be good to actually have a plan that was focused on not just taking them out but what happens after that. Who fills the power vacuum, and who pays for this next war? Where do the funds come from? We are already seeing some groups clamoring for negative interest rates.

    No one is taking away any social entitlements and surviving politically so that fantasy should stop being articulated because it’s about as likely as John Gilmore winning the republican primary. If you said who, you know exactly what I mean.

    We won’t do anything for at least 11 months unless Obama decides his best shot at a legacy is to stop issuing executive orders that are meaningless and starts considering foreign policy and its effect on the real economy of the nation.

    I’m a huge fan of killing all of these guys, but I am no longer a huge fan of getting several thousand Americans killed in the process due to a lack of planning and equipment appropriate to the task. I do not believe that any life in the ME is worth the expenditure of a single US soldier unless we are executing a long range plan to alter the landscape in the region to better suit our interests for the next two hundred years. I’m tired of supporting regimes like the Saudis who are responsible for more of the turmoil there than Turkey. Those two allies alone are worse than many of our supposed enemies in the region.

    1. “I’m a huge fan of killing all of these guys, but I am no longer a huge fan of getting several thousand Americans killed in the process due to a lack of planning and equipment appropriate to the task. I do not believe that any life in the ME is worth the expenditure of a single US soldier unless we are executing a long range plan to alter the landscape in the region to better suit our interests for the next two hundred years. I’m tired of supporting regimes like the Saudis who are responsible for more of the turmoil there than Turkey. Those two allies alone are worse than many of our supposed enemies in the region.”

      Ding! Ding! DING!

      Winner of the Internet quote of the Day.

      1. Thanks for the kind words, OS54….

        Most days I’m sort of an idiot, then I have days like this where maybe what I type makes a bit more sense.

  8. Chem Warfare is not that difficult. I’m more amazed that it took this long to do.

    Now, just imagine that knowledge, if brought to fruition, in the hands of a couple of True Believers like the San Bernadino couple …

    That is the real nightmare, IMO.

    1. Hopefully Obama, nor the UN, throw down another Red Line about Syria or we are all in deep shit.

  10. This isn’t a big surprise. I remember some Al-Qaeda videos of their own experiments with chemical weapons from 2002. Chemical weapons are a relatively low cost, easy to manufacture WMD.

  11. Another one of those DUH moments. Too bad the lying slow learners are in charge when we need folks with the guts to put a swift end to all this nonsense.

    Does anyone in DC have even a small amount of will to survive left amongst them? Without it, we are not likely to. Survive, that is.

  12. One could cause an expensive and city-stopping panic by just dropping a couple of glass containers filled with clean motor oil and marked “VX” in any downtown area of a major city.

    Who needs the real thing? (at least at first)

  13. America is so lucky that we are playing with people that continue to screw up their attacks so badly. The lonbe wolf attacks so far have taken a toll but not a large toll.
    A couple of hundred well motivated and well trained troops could easily bring this country to its knees in a couple of weeks of operations.
    Our DHS is a joke beyond the “Keystone Cops” having only been lucky so far as the individuals continue to brag about their plans on social media.
    No doubt about it, since 9-11 we have been really lucky.

  14. “America is so lucky that we are playing with people that continue to screw up their attacks so badly.” Yeah, the ISIS chemistry experiments make me think of the Three Stooges mixing some concoction that has, um, intended results.

    1. Let’s hope that more than a few of their WMD Chemical Labs end up creating a neighborhood or three of “WMD Wile E. Coyote Bombers” eliminating them and their kin from the gene pool instead of them succeeding at all.

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