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A new report, three years in the making, describes Daesh as a shrewd manufacturing and logistical planning operation that moved weapons, munitions and bomb-making materials throughout its war zone on a scale unprecedented for a terror organization.
Conflict Armament Research (CAR), a weapons-tracking group based in Britain, documented more than 40,000 firearms and munitions across Iraq and Syria by dispatching field investigators in an arc stretching from the northern Syrian city of Kobani to south of Baghdad, Iraq’s capital — a rough tracing of Daesh’s path to conquer wide swaths of territory and establish its caliphate.
The report, which the researchers call the most comprehensive to date about how Daesh, also known as ISIS, ISIL and the Islamic State group, obtained and fielded its weapons, was published Thursday. Observers feel it could become a vital tool for understanding the terror group’s deadly industrial proficiency. Here are a few of its findings:
•Daesh used rockets supplied by the United States.
The Washington Post reported in July that the Trump administration ended a secretive CIA operation to arm moderate Syrian rebels battling President Bashar Assad. Few details on what arms they received are known publicly, but researchers found rockets in Iraq that appear to have been purchased by the United States and supplied to Syrian groups.
In one instance, PG-9 73 mm rockets, sold by Romanian arms manufacturers to the U.S. army in 2013 and 2014, were found sprinkled across both battlefields. Containers with matching lot numbers were found in eastern Syria and recovered from an Islamic State convoy in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, the report says.
On Dec. 12, 2015, Bulgaria exported anti-tank missile launcher tubes to the U.S. army through an Indiana-based company called Kiesler Police Supply. Fifty-nine days later, Iraqi federal police captured the remains of one such weapon after a battle in Ramadi, Iraq, the report says. In another instance, a U.S.-backed rebel group in Syria was photographed using a launcher tube with an identical lot number, indicating it probably came from the same batch, the report says.
CAR investigators noted materials such as aluminum paste and other precursor chemicals from Turkey used to make charges for mortars and rockets were found in Tikrit, Mosul, Fallujah and elsewhere in Iraq. That signifies a robust logistical operation for delivering raw materials to Daesh researchers and engineers manning captured industrial machines and churning out components for munitions, the report says.
“It confirms my theory that this is the industrial revolution of terrorism,” Damien Spleeters, head of CAR operations in Iraq and Syria, recently told Wired. “And for that they need raw material in industrial quantities.”
•Daesh propaganda showing off U.S. rifles was overblown.
Videos and images of U.S.-made small arms captured by the Islamic State, particularly M16 and M4 service rifles, are featured prominently in propaganda videos to tout defeat over groups supplied and trained by U.S. personnel.
While those weapons appear to be diverted to senior commanders as war trophies, CAR’s documentation concluded there was not a big influx of U.S.-made rifles on the battlefield.
https://www.thestar.com/news/world/...ndustrial-revolution-of-terrorism-report.html
Conflict Armament Research (CAR), a weapons-tracking group based in Britain, documented more than 40,000 firearms and munitions across Iraq and Syria by dispatching field investigators in an arc stretching from the northern Syrian city of Kobani to south of Baghdad, Iraq’s capital — a rough tracing of Daesh’s path to conquer wide swaths of territory and establish its caliphate.
The report, which the researchers call the most comprehensive to date about how Daesh, also known as ISIS, ISIL and the Islamic State group, obtained and fielded its weapons, was published Thursday. Observers feel it could become a vital tool for understanding the terror group’s deadly industrial proficiency. Here are a few of its findings:
•Daesh used rockets supplied by the United States.
The Washington Post reported in July that the Trump administration ended a secretive CIA operation to arm moderate Syrian rebels battling President Bashar Assad. Few details on what arms they received are known publicly, but researchers found rockets in Iraq that appear to have been purchased by the United States and supplied to Syrian groups.
In one instance, PG-9 73 mm rockets, sold by Romanian arms manufacturers to the U.S. army in 2013 and 2014, were found sprinkled across both battlefields. Containers with matching lot numbers were found in eastern Syria and recovered from an Islamic State convoy in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, the report says.
On Dec. 12, 2015, Bulgaria exported anti-tank missile launcher tubes to the U.S. army through an Indiana-based company called Kiesler Police Supply. Fifty-nine days later, Iraqi federal police captured the remains of one such weapon after a battle in Ramadi, Iraq, the report says. In another instance, a U.S.-backed rebel group in Syria was photographed using a launcher tube with an identical lot number, indicating it probably came from the same batch, the report says.
CAR investigators noted materials such as aluminum paste and other precursor chemicals from Turkey used to make charges for mortars and rockets were found in Tikrit, Mosul, Fallujah and elsewhere in Iraq. That signifies a robust logistical operation for delivering raw materials to Daesh researchers and engineers manning captured industrial machines and churning out components for munitions, the report says.
“It confirms my theory that this is the industrial revolution of terrorism,” Damien Spleeters, head of CAR operations in Iraq and Syria, recently told Wired. “And for that they need raw material in industrial quantities.”
•Daesh propaganda showing off U.S. rifles was overblown.
Videos and images of U.S.-made small arms captured by the Islamic State, particularly M16 and M4 service rifles, are featured prominently in propaganda videos to tout defeat over groups supplied and trained by U.S. personnel.
While those weapons appear to be diverted to senior commanders as war trophies, CAR’s documentation concluded there was not a big influx of U.S.-made rifles on the battlefield.
https://www.thestar.com/news/world/...ndustrial-revolution-of-terrorism-report.html
