Mosul chlorine gas factory targeted by anti-IS coalition airstrikes

The US-led international coalition has conducted airstrikes against factories and workshops belonging to the Islamic State group (IS, formerly ISIS) in the Iraqi city of Mosul, including a chlorine gas factory, leaving dozens of civilians affected by gas inhalation.

Local officials appealed for coalition airstrikes to be more precise.

A senior official in the Kurdistan Alliance, Ribawar Hassan, told al-Araby al-Jadeed: "The coalition airstrike on a chlorine gas factory in the industrial area of Mosul, has led to the gas spreading in the air, which caused 70 civilians to suffer from impaired breathing and shortness of breath in adjacent areas."

"The injured were taken to hospitals," Hassan added, stressing that "the airstrike also killed and wounded many IS members who were stationed inside these factories and workshops."

He pointed out that international coalition air forces also "bombed the headquarters of the organisation in other areas of Mosul, killing around 24 members of IS and wounding dozens."

Hassan also said that "the IS organisation bombed the Um al-Mauna church in downtown Mosul," explaining that the "organisation had planted many improvised explosive devices in the vicinity of the church before detonating them, causing its complete collapse, then used bulldozers to raze it to the ground."

For his part, Nineveh Provincial Council member, Mohammad Albajari, criticised in a statement to al-Araby "the imprecision of the coalition air force's airstrikes against IS in Mosul and their indifference to the presence of civilians in the province, which led to the deaths and disability of dozens of them." He appealed to the leaders of the coalition to "take into account the presence of civilians in Mosul and to carry out their attacks with precision."