A new report from a prominent human rights group has found that Islamic State (IS) has built a substantial arsenal, including US-made weapons obtained from the Iraqi army and Syrian opposition groups, CNN reported.
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The human rights organization’s report said “reckless arms trading” and has allowed IS to access weapons.
After analyzing thousands of videos and images taken in Iraq and Syria, Amnesty determined that a large proportion of ISIS’ current military arsenal is made up of “weapons and equipment looted, captured or illicitly traded from poorly secured Iraqi military stocks”. The extremist group has also snatched arms from Syrian forces after capturing military bases there.
Amnesty International has published a scathing analysis of the weapons in the hands of Daesh’s movement (ISIS).
The Amnesty report states that arms and ammunition used by ISIS have been traced to at least 25 different countries.
Ten GOP senators are proposing ideas for stepping up the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
Numerous weapons acquired by IS are likely to have been given to Iraqi security forces by various western countries between 2003 and 2007, the report claims, before falling into the terrorists’ hands after they captured Iraqi military compounds.
Isis terrorists operating in Syria and Iraq may be using weapons exported by great britain, based on another report.
Amnesty said ISIS’ weaponry stockpile includes handguns, pistols, machine guns and anti-tank weapons, mortars and artillery dating back from the 70s to 90s.
The report urges governments to exercise caution when sending weapons to the Middle East, calling for all states to adopt a “presumption of denial” when dealing selling arms to Iraq.
The Iraqi army’s stockpile swelled around the 1980-1998 Iraq-Iran war, which the report described as “a seminal moment in the development of the modern global arms market”.
Among the advanced weaponry IS has seized are man-portable air defence systems, guided anti-tank missiles and armoured fighting vehicles, as well as assault rifles like the Russian AK series and the US M16 and Bushmaster. The report stands in “stark contrast” to President Obama’s assurances that ISIS had been “contained” in Iraq and Syria, the Beast reports, adding that it’s also a “tacit admission” that ISIS’s efforts at recruiting new fighters is outpacing the US-led coalition’s efforts to contain it in Iraq and Syria.
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The US-led coalition’s 2003 conflict with Iraq led to the disbanding of the Iraqi military that resulted in the further misappropriation of arms by soldiers. Between 2011 and 2013, the USA signed billions of dollars’ worth of arms contracts with the Iraqi government, and by 2014 it had delivered more than $500 million worth of small arms and ammunition. “But I think it’s important to remember that just because the weapons are old does not mean that they were necessarily transferred in the era they were manufactured”.
