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When the ISIS almost dumped chemical weapons in India to target Delhi, Mumbai

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The Islamic State has chemical weapons and for some reason, none seem to care about it. The new era of terror is a concern for all of us as it deploys both chemical and psychological warfare.

When the ISIS almost dumped chemical weapons in India to target Delhi, Mumbai

One must be concerned over the incident in which a Russian double-agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned in Salisbury, England. While this itself is worrying, the bigger concern is the presence of chemical weapons that are present in Syria.

Syria does have chemical weapons, but what those which do not belong to Bashar Assad. In this context we need to re-visit a statement by the United States of America back in 2015, when it said that the ISIS had sourced Mustard Gas. The statement came at a time when the ISIS was boasting about its capabilities on the chemical warfare front.

The ISIS may have been reduced to a mere 3,000 in both Syria and Iraq. But the problem is that it still has access to chemical weapons, which it would try and use in other parts of the world. The US had confirmed that the Mustard Gas was sourced by the ISIS from Syria. Mustard Gas is an asphxiant that has been banned by the UN in the year 1993.

Back in 2015, the ISIS was at its helm and had gained much territory in Syria. It was at this time that the outfit had acquired much of its chemical capabilities.

The ISIS had managed to beat down a large part of the government machinery in Syria and hence sourcing these weapons may not have been entirely problematic. In fact in the year 1993, it was due to the use of this gas in the civil war in Syria the chemical substance had been banned. The United Nations adopted the Chemical Weapons Convention to ban the use of mustard gas and other chemical agents in warfare.

The use of Mustard Gas was reported by the Iraqi Kurd fighters. They claimed that they were attacked with Mustard Gas by the ISIS. Rockets had been filled with the gas and fired upon them. Most of the fighters reported injuries to their throats.

The medicines are coming:

In the year 2016, the Intelligence Bureau picked up two intercepts. The terrorists were speaking in coded language and they often said, " the medicines are coming." After deciphering the messages, the intelligence learnt that a group called the Harakat ul-Muhojirinfi Britaniya, which owes allegiance to the ISIS was trying to dump chemical weapons in India.

The Intelligence Bureau also learnt that the group was trying to smuggle the weapons into India through Bangladesh. The two intercepts spoke about smuggling medicines and on deciphering the same it was found that it was a code word used for biological and chemical weapons.

Intelligence Bureau officials tell Oneindia that the group did not manage to go through with its plan. It may have been dropped as it would not have been feasible. Terror groups have been attempting to launch chemical and biological attacks for sometime, the officer notes.

The trial:

The IB says that there are various groups which are capable of a biological strike. However most of these groups have not used such weapons as yet. For the moment, the terrorist groups are still carring out test runs. The reason that terrorist groups will be slow to use these weapons as it is their trump card.

Experts say that they will conduct many more trial runs before they actually deploy it to fight the enemy. A couple of instances reported both in Pakistan and Iraq show that biological weapons have been used. Biological agents were used to contaminate the water as a result of which several persons had taken ill.

It appears that the terrorist groups tested these agents in very small quantity and hence none lost their lives. Intelligence agencies say that the target cities for terrorist groups to use biological weapons in India will be Delhi and Mumbai. In Pakistan, there is a chance of the same being used in Khyber Paktunkhwa, Sindh, Islamabad and Karachi.

The threat of nuclear and biological weapons being smuggled had started as far back as 1998. IB officials say that routes in Assam and Kashmir have to be monitored at all times since these groups are most likely to bring in such weapons through these routes.

India's concern:

India is "deeply worried" about reports of the so-called 'Islamic State' or ISIS acquiring chemical weapons and has asked the chemical weapons watchdog OPCW to closely monitor this threat.

"India shares the wide-spread concern over fresh allegations on the use of chemical weapons coming from different parts of the world," Ambassador and Permanent Representative of India to OPCW, Venu Rajamony, said, addressing the 88th session of the Executive Council of the Organization for Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

"India is deeply worried about reports of the so-called Islamic State' or ISIS/ISIL acquiring chemical weapons and their delivery systems and requests the Technical Secretariat to closely monitor this threat and report to the Executive Council on this emerging challenge," Rajamony said.

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