US experts have found no trace of chemical warfare agents in three dozen mortar shells found in Iraq earlier this month, after a second round of definitive testing, the Danish military said Sunday.
"The first tests conducted in Iraq showed no signs of blister gas, and the second round of tests from a United States laboratory also proved negative," a Danish Defence Command spokesman, Major Peter Apelgaard, told AFP.
"All tests for other gases proved negative," he said.
Danish troops serving in the stabilisation force near Basra in southern Iraq on January 10 found 36 rusty and leaking mortar shells likely dating back to the 1980-1988 Iraq-Iran war.
The US team of the Iraq survey group, which is trying to find evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, had asked a laboratory in the United States to verify its findings.
Danish and British instruments in southern Iraq initially detected signs of poison gas.
"We are still trying to find out why our instruments showed signs of gas," Apelgaard said.
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