BAGHDAD, Iraq: The Sunni militant group the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has seized nuclear materials used for scientific research at a university in the northern Iraq, media reports said.
The Iraq’s ambassador to the UN Mohamed Ali Alhakim said that about 40 kilograms of uranium compounds were kept at Mosul University, adding that such materials “can be used in manufacturing weapons of mass destruction.”
“Terrorist groups have seized control of nuclear material at the sites that came out of the control of the state,” Alhakim told UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in a letter on July 8.
The Iraqi envoy warned that the materials could be smuggled out of Iraq.
“The Republic of Iraq is notifying the international community of these dangerous developments and asking for help and the needed support to stave off the threat of their use by terrorists in Iraq or abroad,” Alhakim said in the letter.
