US Fears Iran Helping Libya With Chemical Weapons

The discovery of artillery shells filled with deadly mustard gas discovered at two locations in Libya has US intelligence agents scrambling to uncover where the nation obtained those shells. The leading candidate? Iran, reports the Washington Post. “We are pretty sure we know," said a senior US official. The weapons appear to be quite old, and acquired over many years.

Despite Moammar Gadhafi's promises in 2003 to declare and decommission all of his chemical weapons, he apparently continued to possess stores of deadly and poorly secured chemical agents. Gadhafi was “sitting on stuff that was not secure, and the world did not know about it,” said another US official. "There were no seals and no inventories.” Iran officials, however, strongly objected to being linked to the chemical weapons. "Surely this is another baseless story for demonizing the Islamic Republic of Iran," said a senior Iranian official. “I believe such comments are being fabricated by the US to complete their project of Iranophobia in the region and all through the world." (More Iran stories.)