Chemical Weapons Used by Takfiris in Syria: OPCW

A confidential October 29 report by the OPCW concluded "with the utmost confidence that at least two people were exposed to sulfur mustard" in the town of Marea, north of Aleppo, on August 21, Reuters reported on Thursday.

"It is very likely that the effects of sulfur mustard resulted in the death of a baby," it said.

"It raises the major question of where the sulfur mustard came from," one source said. "Either they (ISIL) gained the ability to make it themselves, or it may have come from an undeclared stockpile overtaken by ISIL. Both are worrying options."

The reports, which will be formally presented to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon later this month, add to a growing body of evidence that the ISIL Takfiri group has obtained, and is using, chemical weapons in both Iraq and Syria.

Kurdish authorities said earlier this month that the ISIL militants fired mortar rounds containing mustard agent at Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in northern Iraq during clashes in August. They said blood samples taken from about 35 fighters who were exposed in the attack southwest of the regional capital of Erbil showed "signatures" of mustard gas.

A team of OPCW experts has been sent to Iraq to confirm the findings and is expected to obtain its own samples later this month, the report added. 

A special session has been called by the OPCW's 41-member Executive Council to discuss the Syrian findings and it will be held in The Hague on November 23, sources at the OPCW told Reuters.

Sulfur mustard - which causes severe delayed burns to the eyes, skin and lungs - is a so-called Schedule 1 chemical agent, meaning it has few uses outside warfare.

Syria in September 2013 destroyed its entire chemical weapons program under a deal negotiated with the United States and Russia.