‘IS making bombs, weapons at Mosul University’

IS cadre have been behind a series of deadly attacks on civil society in public spaces, killing many and wounding more. For the past one year, the dreaded IS terror group has been churning out a new generation of deadly explosives, including chemical bombs and suicide vests, according to a media report.

It has also been training militants to produce the explosives, The Wall Street Journal reported citing US and Iraqi military officials. General Hatem Magsosi, Iraq’s top explosives officer, was quoted as saying that the facilities at the University of Mosul have enhanced IS’ ability to launch attacks in Iraq and to export bomb-making know-how when its fighters leave the socalled caliphate and return to their home countries. 

The weaponry churned out includes peroxide-based chemical bombs and suicide-bomb vests like the ones used in the Brussels attacks and by at least some of the Paris attackers, the report said citing the General, others in the Iraqi military and an official from the US-led coalition fighting IS. Other bombs made include nitrate-based explosives and chemical weapons, Magsosi said. 

“The University of Mosul is the best Daesh research center in the world,” the General said, using another name for the IS. “Trainees go to Raqqa, (Syria), then to Mosul university to use the existing facilities,” he said.  However, the report said the current status of the facility is not clear. 

The US-led coalition has targeted the campus with airstrikes more than once, most recently on March 19. When IS captured Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, in the summer of 2014, the university was one of the spoils. The university had a strong reputation around Iraq for its science departments.