The Islamic State (ISIS) has been making bombs and training militants at a chemistry lab in Iraq for a year, according to a new report.
The Wall Street Journal reports ISIS has made chemical bombs using peroxide and nitrate and suicide bombs similar to those used in the Paris and Brussels attacks at the University of Mosul.
"The University of Mosul is the best [ISIS] research center in the world," Iraqi Gen. Hatem Magsosi told the Journal. "Trainees go to Raqqa, [Syria], then to Mosul university to use the existing facilities."
Coalition forces have struck the Mosul campus on multiple occasions via airstrikes, but it is not known whether the laboratory is still in use by the terrorists. However, Magsosi said Abu Eman, ISIS' top bomb-maker at the Mosul lab, was recently killed by the U.S. military.
The lab first fell into ISIS' hands by the summer of 2014 when the terror group seized control of Mosul, a strategically located northern Iraq city near several main highways and the Tigris River.
Last March, engineers and scientists were working in the well-stocked lab to create deadly concoctions for chemical bombs, reports the Journal. Other ISIS personnel on the campus have been building components for suicide bombs.
A
CBS News story last week discussed the
Brussels attacks and the types of bombs used, which used nails and TATP — a volatile substance that is difficult to make safely.
TATP suicide bombs were used in the Paris attacks as well.