LONDON, Nov. 16 -- Iraq reportedly has been manufacturing poisonous gas at a secret location in Sudan. According the The Sunday Times of London, the Islamist government of General Omar al Bashir in Khartoum has been working together with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's regime to produce and stockpile mustard gas.
Citing military intelligence and diplomatic sources in the Ugandan capital of Kampala, The Sunday Times reports gas is being made at Wau in southwest Sudan as Baghdad attempts to circumvent the ban on weapons of mass destruction imposed on Iraq by the United Nations after the Gulf War. The report claims Sudanese armed forces already have used the gas twice in a civil war against rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Army. Production of the relatively inexpensive gas began in 1995 following a visit by an Iraqi military delegation that included the army's leading chemical weapons expert. Under terms of the alleged deal, Iraq supplied pilots and weapons to help the Sudan war effort. Ties between Baghdad and Khartoum have prospered after Bashir supported Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. First used during World War I, mustard gas was used by Baghdad in 1982 during the Iran-Iraq war and again on numerous occasions against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq. The attacks killed thousands of Kurds. Lethal approximately 80 percent of the time, the gas causes severe eye and lung damage and blistering of the skin. ---
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