“Poor regulation and lack of oversight of the huge arms flows into Iraq going back decades have given ISIS and other armed groups a bonanza of unprecedented access to firepower”, Patrick Wilcken, researcher on arms control at Amnesty International said.
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Four strikes in Syria hit tactical units and wounded Islamic State fighters, according to the statement released on Friday.
The majority of weapons used by ISIL come from supplies plundered from the Iraqi military and mainly consist of stock designed or manufactured in former Soviet bloc states, according to Amnesty International. US military and diplomatic officials should seek to “empower local religious rivals” such as Sufi Muslims to undermine al Qaeda and the Islamic State’s ideology, the think tank said, as well as deprive the groups of territory to diminish their recruitment narrative of a growing, successful caliphate. The internal source of revenue has made it hard for the US campaign to target ISIS’ finances.
The survey, conducted by US news outlet CNN and the U.S.-based market research company Opinion Research Corporation, showed that 53 percent of those questioned believe that the USA should put boots on the ground to fight the radical Islamist group, which overran large areas of Syria and Iraq a year ago. “The fact that countries including the UK have ended up inadvertently arming IS should give us pause over current weapons deals”, said Amnesty UK’s arms program director, Oliver Sprague.
There is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist [fundamentalist Islam] principality in Eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime.
Amnesty International found that the quantity and range of ISIS’ arms and ammunition “ultimately reflects decades of irresponsible arms transfers to Iraq and multiple failures by the U.S.-led occupation administration to manage arms deliveries and stocks securely, as well as endemic corruption in Iraq itself”.
Militants were able to acquire internationally-manufactured weapons from the Iraqi army when it seized Mosul in June 2014, it added. However, the capture of weapons on the battlefield, defections and an illicit trade have helped to keep their supplies well-stocked.
They must also adopt a “presumption of denial” rule on arms exports to Iraq, meaning that transfers could only be carried out after strict risk assessments.
The Amnesty report included videos and images of how these arms and weaponry have fallen into the Islamic militant’s hands. “The worldwide community must learn from past mistakes and take urgent measures to reduce the proliferation of weapons in Iraq, in Syria, and countries or regions of instability”.
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– At least 34 countries supplied Iraq with weapons during its war with Iran in the 1980s.
