The Islamic State has established a laboratory for research and experiment in chemical weapons, the Iraqi military intelligence revealed.
"ISIS is working very seriously to reach production of chemical weapons, particularly nerve gas. That would threaten not just Iraq but the whole world," Hakim al-Zamili, who presides over the Iraqi Parliament's security and defence committee, told the Associated Press.
Several scientists from Iraq and Syria are assisting the Sunni jihadist group, also referred to as ISIS, ISIL or Daesh in Arabic, in it's chemical weapons development program, according to Iraqi intelligence officials.
"They (ISIS) now have complete freedom to select locations for their labs and production sites and have a wide range of experts, both civilians and military, to aid them," an intelligence official from Iraq told AP.
U.S. intelligence, however, remains sceptical about ISIS's capabilities to produce lethal chemical or biological weapons, according to RT.
The revelation came a day after French Prime Minister Manuel Valls warned that terrorists could launch an ISIS-inspired chemical or biological attack on France, as HNGN previously reported.
"The macabre imagination of these commanders has no limits: assault rifles, decapitation, suicide bombings, knife attacks. I say this with the utmost care - but we know there may be a risk of the possibility chemical and biological weapons," Valls said during a session of lower house of national parliament Thursday, according to The Local. Valls' remarks in parliament follow the attacks in the French capital last Friday that killed 129 people.
