RFI
Islamic State: How the terrorist group’s arms supply chain worked
The caliphate may have disappeared in Iraq and Syria in 2019, but the Islamic State terrorist organization is still taking action. After 18 months of investigation, the independent organization Conflict Armament Research, funded by the European Union, publishes a report on Tuesday, December 8, revealing the IS arms supply chain, which “manufactured them. “With the help of” a few families “, explains Damiens Spleeters, its deputy director. RFI: Conflict Armament Research (CAR) released its latest report on Tuesday after an 18-month investigation into the arms supply network of the Islamic State (IS) organization. In particular, it emerges that the components of these weapons were sent via a few families… Damiens Spleeters: We were in the field in 2014 and we found a lot of improvised weapons in addition to conventional weapons. IS was manufacturing its own weapons in industrial quantities in Iraq and Syria, using a whole supply chain to purchase the explosives precursors, materials and chemicals needed to build these weapons. Including improvised explosive devices, bombs, projectiles, mortar shells, etc. And it was found that there was a concentration of the supply chain: it went through a few families in southern Turkey, to the Syrian border. We can’t say clearly that they knowingly collaborated with ISIS, we don’t want to blame them, but if we could have identified them earlier, we might have been able to have an impact on this supply chain. Some red flags have been ignored, one can read in the report, on behalf of companies which supplied these materials to the IS … These companies which manufacture these products transferred in large quantities around the world every day do could not have imagined that their products would land in the hands of ISIS. It is rather at the level of regional or national distributors that the diversions took place. Indeed, there may have been a lack of vigilance in some cases – for example, a shop that sold cellphones bought six tons of aluminum which was then used to make bombs. Another company that marketed fertilizers bought nearly 80 tonnes of a product that had nothing to do with fertilizer. Product which then landed in Syria, and this is the equivalent of almost five times the annual Syrian consumption! These alarm signals could have alerted.The Islamic State organization has disappeared since 2019 territorially in Iraq and Syria, but it is still active and still claims terrorist attacks around the world. Is this supply chain of ISIS weapons still current today? We have no evidence that the identified individuals or companies are still active in supplying these products to ISIS but identified products on the ground in Iraq today in 2020 were bought in 2014 or 2015. So the supplies from those years still have an impact today. What we’re trying to show is how it happened. past, so that companies can now be careful, and that ISIS or other groups cannot source explosives precursors or components to make bombs. Because ISIS is still active in 2020. You have been publishing reports for several years, have they had any effects? Turkey was one of the first countries to arrest people identified in our reports even if it did not necessarily have to do with it. link, because Ankara had an eye on these individuals. But the effects of our surveys are especially visible on the private sector. We contacted a group that made a product used for explosives, to tell them that their products had been diverted to the benefit of ISIS. He decided to stop these supplies to the distributor that we had identified. We are also transmitting our findings to the European Commission, which is funding our investigation. We believe it will pass them on to its member states and to certain groups that produce chemicals. Then it is up to them to act to limit the future risks of diversion of these products. ► Also to listen: Sinjar, 5 years after the fall of Daesh
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