ISIS extremists are recruiting foreigners who can make chemical weapons for the terrorist group

ISIS extremists are recruiting foreigners who can make chemical weapons for the terrorist group, which has already used CHLORINE bombs, Australia's foreign minister warns

By John Carney for Daily Mail Australia and Reuters

Published: 03:57 GMT, 6 June 2015 | Updated: 15:55 GMT, 6 June 2015

Australia's Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has warned Islamic State militants have used as a weapon and are recruiting 'highly trained professionals' to make even more chemical weapons. 

Ms Bishop said the rise of militant groups such as ISIS, also known as Daish, posed 'one of the gravest security threats we face today.'

'Apart from some crude and small scale endeavours, the conventional wisdom has been that the terrorist intention to acquire and weaponise chemical agents has been largely aspirational,' Bishop told a meeting of the Australia Group in Perth.

Australia's Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has warned that Islamic State millitants have used chlorine as a weapon

ISIS, also known as Daish, are recruiting 'highly trained professionals' to make more chemical weapons

'The use of chlorine by Daish, and its recruitment of highly technically trained professionals, including from the West, have revealed far more serious efforts in chemical weapons development.

'Daish is likely to have amongst its tens of thousands of recruits the technical expertise necessary to further refine precursor materials and build chemical weapons.'

The Iraqi Kurdish authorities have already made allegations that they have evidence that ISIS used chlorine gas against their peshmerga fighters in northern Iraq in January.

Australian politicians across the board said it would be disastrous if ISIS were successfully developing chemical weapons

ABC News reports that Cabinet Minister Mathias Cormann and Labor frontbencher Chris Bowen agreed it would be disastrous if ISIS were successfully developing chemical weapons and that everything must be done to prevent it from happening.

‘Countries around the world that are as committed as we are to defeating this threat have got to continue working together to make sure this doesn't happen,’ he said.

Mr Bowen agreed and said Labor would be supporting the government in this issue every step of the way. 

Ms Bishop (right) said ISIS posed 'one of the gravest security threats we face today'

‘Of course the Labor Party has given full bipartisan support to measures from the Australian Government to lend support to the government of Iraq to deal with the scourge of Daesh and that would continue,’ he said.

'I would have thought we would get a briefing on these latest developments as a matter of some urgency.' 

Chlorine is a choking agent whose use as a chemical weapon dates back to World War One. It is banned under the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, which prohibits all use of toxic agents on the battlefield. 

Iraqi Kurdish authorities allege they have evidence that ISIS used chlorine gas against their peshmerga fighters