ISIL ’chemical weapons expert’ killed

In a statement issued on Friday, the Pentagon's Central Command said the airstrike was conducted last Saturday near the city of Mosul, killing Abu Malik, who once worked for former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

The military statement claimed that Malik’s training “provided the terrorist group with expertise to pursue a chemical weapons capability.”

According to Central Command, the man served as a chemical weapons engineer under the Saddam regime, before joining al-Qaeda in Iraq and then ISIL.

“His death is expected to temporarily degrade and disrupt the terrorist network and diminish ISIL’s ability to potentially produce and use chemical weapons against innocent people,” it said.

There have been some reports of ISIL terrorists using chlorine gas, but no evidence the group possesses a major chemical weapons arsenal.

US warplanes have been conducting airstrikes against ISIL in Iraq since early August. Some Western states have also participated in some of the strikes in Iraq.

The US-led coalition has done little to stop the ISIL's advances in Iraq.

On January 23, the Pentagon announced that ISIL militants lost only a tiny fraction of the territories they had captured in Iraq since US-led airstrikes began last year.

The ISIL terrorists, who were initially trained by the CIA in Jordan in 2012 to destabilize the Syrian government, are engaged in crimes against humanity in the areas under their control.

They have been carrying out horrific acts of violence such as public decapitations and crucifixions against all communities, including Shias, Sunnis, Kurds, and Christians.

In an interview with Press TV on Thursday, Canadian journalist Arthur Topham said the creation of the ISIL terrorist group was part of a “false flag operation” by the United States and Israel to spread “Islamophobia” against Muslims.  

“The US and Israel have been involved in the whole creation of the ISIS/ISIL myth… trying to lay the blame on the Muslim nations,” said Topham from Cottonwood, British Columbia. “As far as I can see, it’s another false flag attempt to build up more Islamophobic hatred towards all the Arab states in the Middle East.”