Updated 5:52 p.m. Moscow Time
BAGHDAD, October 26 (RIA Novosti) – Islamic State (IS) militants fired chlorine-filled shells on a residential district in Iraqi's western Anbar Province, commander of the rapid intervention forces in Anbar, Shaaban Obaidi said Sunday.
"The militants of "Daesh" [the Arabic for Islamic State] fired seven shells filled with chlorine on the residential district in Al Anbar," the local Khabarnet News Agency quoted Obaidi as saying.
According to the commander, no casualties were registered as a result of the shelling, as residents had left the buildings and some shells did not explode.
In September, Iraqi media said that the IS militants fired the city of Dulu'iyya with shells that contained toxic substances, presumably chlorine.
A week after the news of the incidents in Dulu'iyya was released, Iraqi mass media, referring to a member of Iraq's parliament, reported that 300 soldiers, who were trapped in the suburbs of Fallujah, were killed by a chlorine attack.
Iraq's Ministry of Defense stated on September 28 that IS extremists have used chlorine in fougasses several times, but do not currently possess enough chlorine to cause severe destruction.
The IS, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), has been fighting the Syrian government since 2012. In June 2014, the group extended its attacks to northern and western Iraq, declaring a caliphate on the territories over which it had control.
