British minister sees risk of chemical attack by ISIS on the United Kingdom.

Islamic State militants intend to launch large-scale chemical attacks against targets in the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe, the British security minister said on Sunday; Ben Wallace also said that British authorities fear that as the militant group is driven from its strongholds in the Middle East, such as the Iraqi city of Mosul, British members who have fought for the group will return to the country and pose a growing domestic threat; "The ambition of ISIS, or Daesh, is definitely to carry out mass attacks," Wallace told the Sunday Times.

January 01, 2017, 17:38 AMUpdated June 29, 2018, 10:00 pm

Islamic State militants intend to launch large-scale chemical attacks against targets in the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe, the British security minister said on Sunday; Ben Wallace also said that British authorities fear that, as the militant group is driven from its strongholds in the Middle East, such as the Iraqi city of Mosul, British members who have fought for the group will return to the country and pose a growing domestic threat; "The ambition of ISIS, or Daesh, is definitely to carry out mass attacks," Wallace told the Sunday Times (Photo: Romulo Faro)

LONDON (Reuters) - Islamic State militants plan to launch large-scale chemical attacks against targets in the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe, the British security minister said in a newspaper interview published on Sunday.

Ben Wallace also said that British authorities fear that as the militant group is driven out of its strongholds in the Middle East, such as the Iraqi city of Mosul, British members who have fought for the group will return to the country and pose a growing domestic threat.

"The ambition of ISIS, or Daesh, is definitely to carry out mass attacks," Wallace told the Sunday Times.

"They have no moral qualms about using chemical weapons against the population, and if they can, they will do it in this country. The number of injuries that could be involved in that would be the greatest fear of all."

The report stated that no specific plan involving chemical weapons has been identified, but that security services are conducting exercises to prepare for that possibility.

The Islamic State used sulfur mustard gas in an attack on the Syrian city of Marea in August 2015, according to the global organization Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

Wallace pointed to the dismantling of an Islamic State cell in Morocco in February as evidence of the group's ambition to carry out chemical attacks elsewhere.

"Moroccan authorities dismantled a cell involved in chemical weapons. They recovered toxic chemicals and biological substances, as well as a large stockpile of fertilizers. The substances found could have been used to produce homemade explosives and could have been transformed into a deadly poison," he said.

It is estimated that around 800 Britons have travelled to Syria, many of them to join the Islamic State, since the start of the civil war in the country. Around 100 of them have been killed.

"The big concern is if Mosul collapses and all the other ISIS (Islamic State) bases fall. We know there are a significant number (of Britons) fighting for ISIS in Syria. They will probably want to go home," said Wallace.

(By Estelle Shirbon)