More than 50 companies worldwide are legally supplying the Islamic State with bomb-making material, either willingly or because they and the countries in which they operate are failing to monitor the sales, according to a Conflict Armament Research report released today.
CAR is a non-governmental organization funded by the European Union that identifies and tracks conventional weapons and ammunition in contemporary armed conflicts. While there is no evidence in the report released today to prove direct transfer between the countries and firms involved, and IS, it shows that companies are extensively supplying local markets with material such as chemical precursors, detonating cords, detonators, cables, wires and other electronic components, and that the Islamic State has the reach to acquire them.
The way it works is that large manufacturers are selling material and components to regional distributors, who then sell to local distributors, CAR’s Executive Director James Bevan told ABC News, adding: “it gets fuzzy at the local level. Operatives [for IS] or friendly parties for them buy [components and material] from the local market in reasonable bulk,” Bevan said.
CAR established in its report that in some cases it has taken as little as one month for bomb-making material to get from legal distributors to the hands of IS.
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