Amnesty International says decades of reckless arms trading and the poorly regulated flow of weapons into Iraq have contributed to the accumulation of a “vast and varied” arsenal of weaponry by Islamic State (IS) militants.
Advertisement
Such arms have been manufactured by numerous countries, including Russia, China the United States and the European Union, the group said in a press release.
By showing these weapons have enabled the IS to carry out human rights abuses including summary killings, hostage-taking, rape and torture, AI hopes its report will make governments take account of the situation that poor regulation, lack of oversight and virtually unhindered freedom for arms exporters has created.
The report urges that steps be taken now to curb future arms proliferation in unstable countries and regions. “Likewise, lax controls over military stockpiles and endemic corruption by successive Iraqi governments have added to the problem”, the watchdog’s report claimed.
With few rules in place to limit the transfer of weapons to Iraq, and “porous” checks on the ground in the past ten years, weapons “have reached” the hands of Islamic State, including some manufactured by FN Herstal, accuses Amnesty International Belgium in a new report on Tuesday.
Amnesty International says it can trace the militants’ firepower back to a catalogue of botched arms deals with Iraq, Syria and the much-vaunted moderate Syrian opposition. “During this period, illicit markets flourished, as did covert supplies from Iran, making arms and ammunition readily available to armed groups operating in Iraq”.
Britain has been selling arms to Iraq for decades, including to Saddam Hussein before his invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and after the US-British invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Even more disastrous was the fact that a stockpile of weapons given to the US-trained rebels ended up in the hands of terrorists, after the so-called “moderates” willingly handed it over to groups such as Al-Nusra Front soon after crossing into Syria. Between 2011 and 2013, the U.S. signed billions of dollars’ worth of contracts for 140 M1A1 Abrams tanks, F16 fighter aircraft, 681 Stinger shoulder held units, Hawk anti-aircraft batteries, and other equipment.
“This was at a time of extreme volatility, when Iraq was at war with Iran and the Iraqi armed forces were committing widespread” human rights violations.
Besides its massive haul in Mosul, the jihadist organisation also captured vast quantities of military equipment when it seized army and police bases in Fallujah, Tikrit, Saqlawiya, and Ramadi as well as in Syria.
“The legacy of arms proliferation and abuse in Iraq and the surrounding region has already destroyed the lives and livelihoods of millions of people and poses an ongoing threat”, Mr Wilcken said.
Advertisement
“The big takeaway for us is that you have to look historically at this and the long process whereby states often recklessly and irresponsibly send arms to Iraq… often in a very uncoordinated and chaotic manner”, Wilcken said.
