Forces blasted with chlorine, Kurds assert

BAGHDAD -- Kurdish authorities in Iraq said Saturday that they have evidence the Islamic State used chlorine gas as a chemical weapon against peshmerga fighters, the latest atrocity purportedly carried out by the extremists now under attack in Tikrit.

The allegation by the Kurdistan Region Security Council, stemming from a Jan. 23 suicide truck bomb attack in northern Iraq, did not immediately draw a reaction from the Islamic State, which holds a third of Iraq and neighboring Syria in its self-declared caliphate. However, Iraqi officials and Kurds fighting in Syria have made similar accusations about the militants using the low-grade chemical weapons against them.

In a statement, the council said the suspected chemical attack took place on a road between Iraq's second-largest city, Mosul, and the Syrian border, as peshmerga forces fought to seize a vital supply line used by the Sunni militants. It said its fighters later found "around 20 gas canisters" that had been loaded onto the truck involved in the attack.

Video provided by the council showed a truck racing down a road, white smoke pouring out of it as it came under heavy fire from peshmerga fighters. It later showed a white, billowing cloud after the truck exploded and the remnants of it scattered across a road.

An official with the Kurdish council said dozens of peshmerga fighters were treated for "dizziness, nausea ... and general weakness" after the attack. He spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to discuss the attack.

The Kurds say samples of clothing and soil from the site were analyzed by an unnamed lab in an unnamed coalition partner nation, which found chlorine traces.

"The fact ISIS relies on such tactics demonstrates it has lost the initiative and is resorting to desperate measures," the Kurdish government said in the statement, using an alternate acronym for the Sunni militant group.

There was no independent confirmation of the Kurds' claim. Peter Sawczak, a spokesman for the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which has monitored Syria's dismantling of its chemical weapons stockpile, said his group had not been asked to investigate the attack.

Alistair Baskey, a spokesman for the White House's National Security Council, said U.S. officials were aware of the Kurds' claim, though they had no information "regarding its veracity at this time."

"We find such allegations deeply disturbing, and if there are parties engaged in such use, they should be held appropriately accountable," Baskey said.

Chlorine, an industrial chemical, was first introduced as a chemical weapon at Ypres in World War I with disastrous effects as gas masks were not widely available at the time. While chlorine has many industrial and public uses, as a weapon it chokes victims to death.

In the Syrian civil war, a chlorine gas attack on the outskirts of Damascus in 2013 killed hundreds and nearly drove the U.S. to launch airstrikes against the government of President Bashar Assad. The U.S. and Western allies accused Assad's government of being responsible for that attack, while Damascus blamed rebels.

There have been several allegations that the Islamic State has used chlorine as well. In October, Iraqi officials claimed Islamic State militants may have used chlorine-filled cylinders during clashes in late September in the towns of Balad and Duluiya. Their disclosures came as reports from the Syrian border city of Kobani indicated that the extremist group added chlorine to an arsenal that already includes heavy weapons and tanks looted from captured military bases.

Insurgents have used chlorine gas in Iraq before. In May 2007, suicide bombers driving chlorine tankers struck three cities in Anbar province, killing two police officers and forcing about 350 Iraqi civilians and six U.S. troops to seek treatment for gas exposure. Those bombers belonged to al-Qaida in Iraq, which later became the Islamic State.

Meanwhile Saturday, Iraqi security forces engaged in fierce clashes with the militants as they continued their offensive to retake Saddam Hussein's hometown, Tikrit.

Iraqi forces, which include the military, police, Shiite militias and Sunni tribesmen, entered Tikrit for the first time Thursday, gaining control of neighborhoods on its northern and southern ends.

Militia commander Hadi al-Amiri has said security forces will hold their position until the area is cleared of any remaining civilians. He estimated Friday that Iraqi forces would reach the center of Tikrit within two to three days.

Faleh al-Issawi, deputy chief of the Anbar provincial council, said that since Iraq began a military operation to retake Tikrit, Islamic State militants have increased their attacks to capture the city of Ramadi, about 110 miles away.

The group has hit Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, with 150 mortar shells and attacked security forces with 23 car bombings since Wednesday, al-Issawi said in a telephone interview Saturday.

He said the group employed a new tactic and dug tunnels thousands of feet long and planted and detonated bombs underneath Iraqi army headquarters. Twenty-five soldiers died Wednesday, he said.

Army headquarters were attacked again Saturday with two car bombs, he said, and the city's defenses are collapsing under the strain of the fighting.

Christian village retaken

Elsewhere, Kurdish fighters and Christian militiamen are making gains against the Islamic State in northeastern Syria, with intense clashes underscored by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes, an activist group and a Kurdish official said Saturday.

Nasser Haj Mansour, a defense official in Syria's Kurdish region, said the fighters captured the Christian village of Tal Maghas in Hassakeh province, which had been under the control of Islamic State militants. Haj Mansour and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the village was taken overnight.

They said airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition, the first in the area in days, were targeting Islamic State positions near Tal Tamr village, about 6 miles west of Tal Maghas. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Haj Mansour reported intense clashes Saturday near Tal Tamr.

The U.S. military said in a statement that an airstrike against Islamic State militants near the provincial capital city of Hassakeh struck one tactical unit and destroyed a fighting position.

Syria's main Kurdish force, the People's Protection Units had called for air support from the U.S.-led coalition in Hassakeh province. The Islamic State has been fighting the Kurdish force and members of the Christian Syriac Military Council in Hassakeh for weeks, with dozens killed on both sides.

In the past months, U.S.-led airstrikes have helped the Kurdish fighters push the Islamic State out of some parts of northern Syria. Recently, weeks of airstrikes helped tip the balance against Islamic State fighters attacking Kobani. Since then, the Kurdish force has regained full control of Kobani as well as dozens of surrounding villages.

The Kurdish fighters called on young men to join the battle, saying the Islamic State has brought in reinforcements from Syria and Iraq.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordination Committees, another activist group, said government warplanes Saturday conducted scores of raids in various parts of Syria, killing and wounding dozens. One of the deadliest struck Douma, a rebel-held suburb of the capital Damascus, killing at least 12 people and wounding many others, the groups said.

Also Saturday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has a network of activists across Syria, said a cousin of the Syrian president was shot dead in a dispute with an influential person in his northwestern hometown of Qardaha.

The activist group did not give further details or name of the person who allegedly killed Mohammed Toufic Assad.

In a statement marking the beginning of the fifth year of Syria's conflict that has killed more than 220,000, United Nations refugee agency special envoy Angelina Jolie urged "governments around the world to put aside their differences and mount a new attempt to solve the conflict politically."

"I appeal for urgent steps to demonstrate that the international community is serious about accountability in Syria: to show that we will not turn a blind eye to war crimes, and that we will not fail refugees, the displaced and the survivors," she said.

In other news, some 2,000 people attended a funeral march in western Germany for a woman who was killed while fighting with the Kurds against the Islamic State in Syria.

Police said friends and Communists escorted the body of Ivana Hoffmann, 19, through the city of Duisburg to a cemetery where she was buried.

Hoffmann died a week ago while fighting with Kurdish forces near Tal Tamr.

Hoffman was born in Germany to a German mother and a Togolese father. She was a member of the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party in Turkey and joined Kurdish fighters about six months ago, the party said in a statement. The party said she died in clashes with Islamic State militants.

Information for this article was contributed by Vivian Salama, Qassim Abdul-Zahra, Jon Gambrell, Darlene Superville and staff members of The Associated Press and by Zaid Sabah of Bloomberg News.

A Section on 03/15/2015