Sulfur mustard

A global watchdog reported that there are “extremely worrying” signs that ISIS may be making its own chemical weapons and may have already used them in Iraq and Syria.

The head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, Ahmet Uzumcu, said his teams have found evidence of the use of sulphur mustard in attacks in the two countries.

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants are believed to be responsible for sulfur mustard gas attacks in Syria and Iraq last year, the United States said on Feb. 17.

CIA director John Brennan has said that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants have used chemical weapons and have the capability to make small quantities of chlorine and mustard gas, CBS News reported Feb. 11.

The U.S. Army began destroying the nation's largest remaining stockpile of chemical weapons on March 18, using explosives to rip open a container of mustard agent inside a sealed chamber and then flooding it with another chemical to neutralize it.
     

All Syria's precursor chemicals that could be used to make deadly sarin gas have been destroyed on board a US Navy ship on the Mediterranean Sea, the world's chemical watchdog said on Aug. 13.
      

The head of the Hellenic League for Human Rights, Constantinos Tsitselikis, has written to the European Commission to ask for Brussels to take action to prevent the destruction of Syrian chemical weapons in the sea off Crete.

A number of citizen groups and labor unions on Crete have decided to try to form a blockade around the NATO base in Souda Bay later this month to protest plans to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons in the sea south of the island.

Hundreds of people gathered in Sfakia, Crete, on Sunday to protest against the destruction of Syrian chemical weapons in the Mediterranean.

The demonstration, attended by hundreds of people, was timed to coincide with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) reportedly starting the process of destroying the weapons.

A few days after thousands of Cretans protested against the destruction of Syrian chemical weapons off the coast of their island, Foreign Minister Evangelos Venizelos has written to local authorities to suggest that their protests could damage tourism.