UN investigators compiling evidence on chemical weapons use by Islamic State extremists in Iraq

By EDITH M. LEDERER
Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — U.N. investigators are compiling evidence on the development and use of chemical weapons by Islamic State extremists in Iraq after they seized about a third of the country in 2014. And they are advancing work on the militant group’s gender-based violence and crimes against children, Sunni and Shiite Muslims, Christians, and Yazidis, the head of the investigative team said Wednesday. Christian Ritscher told the U.N. Security Council that survivors of a March 2016 chemical attack against Taza Khurmatu, a mainly Shia Turkmen town south of Kirkuk in Iraq’s northeast, were still deeply impacted when he visited earlier this year. He said he has prioritized the chemical dimension of the crimes that the Islamic State committed.