GLOBAL TERROR

UK Minister: Islamic State May Wage Chemical Attacks in the West

As the Islamic State is driven out of its strongholds in the Middle East.

Ben Wallace, Britain’s security minister, says he believes the Islamic State may carry out “mass casualty” chemical attacks in the UK or elsewhere in Europe. In an interview published Sunday, Wallace said the risk of a terrorist attack in the West is greater after the group is driven out of its strongholds in the Middle East. “The ambition of IS or Daesh is definitely mass-casualty attacks,” Wallace told The Sunday Times. “They have no moral objection to using chemical weapons against populations and if they could, they would in this country. The casualty figures that could be involved would be everybody's worst fear,” he said. While he clarified that security services had not uncovered any specific plot to use chemical weapons, a Moroccan cell of the group was found to have “toxic chemical and biological substances” at its disposal in February, he said.