http://archive.is/5myu8
>The detainee was identified by officials as Sleiman Daoud al-Afari, a chemical and biological weapons expert who once worked for Saddam Hussein’s Military Industrialization Authority.
>Mr. al-Afari, described by the military as a “significant” Islamic State operative who was captured a month ago by commandos in an elite American Special Operations force, has, under interrogation, provided his captors with details about how the group had weaponized mustard gas into powdered form and loaded it into artillery shells, the officials said.
>One official said that the gas was not concentrated enough to kill anyone, but that it could maim people.
>Defense Department officials insist that the United States had no plans to hold the detainee or any other captives indefinitely, and that they would be handed over to the Iraqi and Kurdish authorities after they had been interviewed. The officials say they did not intend to establish a long-term American facility to hold Islamic State detainees, and Obama administration officials have ruled out sending any to the United States military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
>Mr. al-Afari was captured last month, shortly after the arrival in Iraq of a new Special Operations force that is made up primarily of Delta Force commandos. They are the first major American combat force on the ground there since the United States pulled out of the country at the end of 2011.
>Before this, the American military has largely fought the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, with airstrikes, killing large numbers of Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria. But the 200-member Special Operations team has been given the task of killing and capturing Islamic State operatives, the latter in particular to use in gathering intelligence.
>The United States has long suspected the Islamic State of using sulfur mustard, a chemical warfare agent, and last year officials said that they had confirmed the presence of the mustard gas on fragments of ordnance used in Islamic State attacks in Syria and Iraq. Laboratory tests, which were also performed on scraps of clothing from victims, showed the presence of a partially degraded form of HD, also known as distilled sulfur mustard, a substance banned internationally that burns a victim’s skin, airways and eyes.