Where Did ISIS Get Its Chemical Weapons?

An infamous Dutch soldier turned ISIS fighter says the group has acquired chemical weapons once belonging to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, resurrecting fears that what was supposed to be the regime’s destroyed program has instead fallen into jihadi hands.

“The regime uses chemical warfare on a regular basis these days, and nobody bats an eye—yet when [ISIS] captures it from them and uses it against them it’s all of a sudden a huge problem?” ISIS fighter Omar Yilmaz, 27, said in a Tumblr post. “Fight them the way they fight you.”

The post marks the first time a public ISIS figure has declared that the group obtained chemical weapons from the Assad regime. And it comes just days after the first series of suspected ISIS mustard gas attacks in northern Iraq and Syria.

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“I think [ISIS] is trying to convey several things. Its propaganda has been geared at intimidating enemies. This serves that purpose,” said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “And it wants to show its capability to would-be allies, to attract fighters.”

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