LONDON: A drone strike in 2015 foiled a plot by Daesh to attack Europe with chemical weapons, US intelligence sources say.
The Washington Post reported that an unnamed source said Daesh planned to use the expertise of Salih Al-Sabawi, an Iraqi engineer who worked in Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons program, to develop an arsenal to attack regional rivals and major urban centers in the West.
“They (Daesh) were specifically looking at Western Europe,” the source told the newspaper. “We know they were also interested in US military bases, on the continent, or really anywhere. They were ultimately going to go with the easiest target.”
The source said US and Kurdish intelligence officers discovered the plot in 2014, and Al-Sabawi had been given the tools and resources to weaponize anthrax by then-Daesh leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.
Al-Sabawi was killed in an operation in January 2015, launched by US special forces. He was assassinated in his car as he drove home from the laboratory at Mosul University that he had been using. One of his sons was also killed in the operation.
The source said Daesh intended to deliver Al-Sabawi’s weapons to European cells, including the one responsible for the attacks in Paris at the Stade de France and Bataclan theater in November that year, which killed 130 people.
Despite killing Al-Sabawi, known to fellow Daesh members as Abu Malik, the group did succeed in producing both mustard gas and chlorine bombs.
