US destroys ISIS chemical weapons factory

[Geee]

Washington Examiner

The U.S. this week bombed a suspected chemical weapons factory in Syria in order to keep increasingly desperate Islamic State fighters from using them on the battlefield, as U.S.-backed Syrian rebels continue to gain ground in the battle to liberate Raqqa.

"We know that ISIS has proven in Iraq that they are willing to use chemical weapons," said Col. Ryan Dillon, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad.
"We have not seen the use of chemical weapons in Syria, but we don't want to wait for them to use it either," Dillon said at a Pentagon briefing Thursday.
The U.S.-led coalition says it destroyed the factory near Dayr Az Zawr during an airstrike Monday, as well as nearby oil stills and storage facilities.
The suspected ISIS chemical weapons factory was stockpiling industrial chemicals, not sophisticated nerve agents such as Sarin. To the extent ISIS has been able to fashion chemical weapons, they have been crude, and generally ineffective.
"Largely, they have been rudimentary and have not had a significant effect on the overall campaign," Dillon said.