German military observers in northern Iraq’s Kurdish region say Islamic State fighters appear to have used chlorine gas shells to attack Kurdish forces.
A German intelligence unit in the Kurdish region’s capital, Irbil, told the German newspaper Bild that the apparent attack on August 12 was at Makhmur, about 60 kilometers southwest of Irbil.
The German forces received accounts of the attack from a meeting with tribal elders.
About 60 Kurdish Peshmerga fighters injured by the attack were suffering from respiratory problems.
Bild said a military report has been sent to senior officials in Berlin by the German troops, who are training Peshmerga and Yazidi fighters supplied with German weaponry to fight the IS group.
Makhmur has been a frontline between IS militants and Kurdish forces since the summer of 2014 when IS militants seized large swathes of territory in western and northern Iraq.