|
'Suspicious' chemicals found
27/04/2003 10:11 - (SA)
Washington - US troops scouring northern Iraq for weapons of mass destruction have found drums with "suspicious" chemicals whose nature has yet to be determined, a Defence Department official announced late on Saturday.
"There were some suspicious drums found," Pentagon spokeswoman Megan Fox told AFP, adding that a US mobile chemical laboratory had arrived at the location to conduct tests.
She said additional tests will have to be done before the military could draw any definitive conclusions about the nature of the find.
The Defence Department declined to release any additional information.
But ABC News reported the unmarked barrels numbered 14 and had been discovered on Friday east of the town of Bayji, near an Iraqi ammunition dump that also contained 150 gas masks.
A preliminary test of one of the barrels showed a mixture of three chemicals, including a nerve agent and blistering agent, the report said.
There have been several false alarms in the course of the Iraq war when US troops found suspicious substances believed to have been chemical weapons.
None of these finds has been confirmed as chemical agents.
- AFX
|
News
