The Telegraph reports an artillary shell containing the deadly nerve gas sarin, exploded in Baghdad. This represents the first hard evidence of the presence of chemical weapons in Iraq. The discovery is the first time the American-led coalition has found definite proof of chemical or biological weapons in Iraq.
Brig Gen Mark Kimmitt, a coalition spokesman, said the round was a 155-millimetre shell and had been attached to an improvised roadside bomb in the Iraqi capital.
It exploded before the soldiers could defuse it, causing "a very small dispersal of agent". Two explosives experts were treated for minor exposure to the agent.
He said that the blast happened "a couple of days ago" but that the discovery of sarin had been confirmed today by the Iraqi Survey Group, the group which has led the search for Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.
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