Who’s Arming Radical Militants in Syria and Iraq?

The Western coalition struggle against the notorious Islamic State terrorist organization is going to celebrate its one thousand days of its military operations against ISIS on May 4. A thousand days ago American Air Force opened a new chapter in the history of its Middle Eastern military campaigns, by launching an attack against the terrorist positions in Iraq, and then in Syria.

A thousand days and and a thousand nights – is a huge period by the standards of modern warfare, when the geopolitical situation dictates a rapid course of actions. This is especially true in the Middle East, where in the past three years there have been unprecedented changes in the alignment of forces and interests.

Despite certain successes in this struggle, that were achieved by both the American and Russian coalitions, unfortunately, one must note that the fight against international terrorism has been unjustifiably dragged down. The main reason for the fight taking so long is not the alleged amount of support that the idea of a “world caliphate” received in the region, but Washington’s interest in maintaining tensions across the Middle East. Thus, it’s been using ISIS as it used to take advantage of Al-Qaeda’s existence.

Unfortunately, it is also necessary to recognize that the interests of the US military contractors in the eyes of Western politicians overshadows any other public concerns, leaving the arms market at the mercy of gun traffickers. And why should we ever be surprised by the fact that the alleged “fight against international terrorism” is taking so long, when what was supposed to be a humanitarian operation of the international community is being transformed into an arms dealer’s heaven.

Small arms shipments to radical militants don’t surprise anybody these days, as terrorists started receiving artillery system, anti-aircraft guns and even tanks, which is not only exacerbates the level of violence in the Middle East, but also makes ISIS opposition so much stronger.

Thus, it has recently become known that the so-called Free Syrian Army, which received a extensive amount of support from Western states and Turkey, has started selling its tanks to the Islamic State.

Thus, it became known that the Free Syrian Army, which was supported by the West and Turkey, sold tanks to the terrorist organization Islamic State, as it’s been reported by the Turkish media source BirGun. As it’s been noted by the publication, the Turkish armored vehicles participating in Operation Euphrates’ Shield in the northern Syria somehow fell into the hands of the FSA units that decided to sell them to ISIS.

Over the past five years numerous media have repeatedly stressed the existence of illegal arms trafficking channels stretching from the EU, primarily from the Balkan and Eastern European states, to terrorists in Syria and Iraq. However, any hope that this information could be of interest to law enforcement agencies that were supposed to put an end to these illegal activities or the governments that claim they are engaged in combating international terrorism activities fell flat. Both the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) have repeatedly exposed the participation of a number of European countries and Persian monarchies in the ongoing sale of weapons to extremists, which initially started back in 2012. The total worth of arms sold has surpassed 1.2 billion euros, effectively transformig the so-called “color spring” protest movements into a source of perpetual armed conflict. Since then, thousands of units of weapons and munitions have been smuggled from the Balkans countries to the Persian Gulf states and those countries that share a common border with Syria.

But in spite of these reports, new weapons shipments continue arriving to Syria, strengthening ISIS and Al-Qaeda forces. Those Bulgarian shipments are conducted under the guise of “providing logistic support to the moderate Syrian opposition.” It hardly a surprise to anyone that the Pentagon is deeply involved in these illegal activities, since its taking advantage of its aid program that are designed to provide assistance to key US allies. Such companies as Chemring and Orbital ATK are heavily engaged in delivering weapons by sea to Saudi Arabia, from where they will go to Syria directly. Just recently a blogger that goes under the name of Lost weapons that has been covering weapons that are used in modern armed conflicts, posted a screenshot on Twitter of the video of the “Islamic state” in which an extremist holds a grenade for a Bulgarian anti-tank grenade launcher, noting:

Then some bulgarian RPGs. See both PMU and ISIS using bulgarian tandem RPGs in mosul. then counless clips of VBIEDS vs MBTS, HMMWV, ect

It is not difficult to confirm that this grenade was produced at theVazovski Mashinostroitelni Zavodi (VMZ) in Bulgaria, if one is to compare it with the one featured at the official site of VMZ in the list of products. Both the markings and the appearance of munitions are identical.

A video of the Bulgarian weapons is fresh, dated April, and anti-tank grenade launchers are used by extremists against the Iraqi forces, who are now trying to recapture the so-called ISIS capital in Iraq – the city of Mosul. The absurdity of the situation is that the jihadists are shooting Bulgarian weapons bought with the money provided by American taxpayers, trying to kill, among other targets, American servicemen!

The head of Conflict Armament Research, James Bevan has clearly stated last year that anyone who arms the so-called Syrian opposition has no control whatsoever over where the weapons are going to be used. Pretty much the same scenario occurred in Afghanistan back in the 80s, when the United States, Saudi Arabia and their allies supplied weapons to Pakistani intelligence.

The fact that the United States carries on large-scale shipment of Bulgarian weapons to the “moderate” opposition in Syria has recently been uncovered by the Bulgarian newspaper Trud. According to the media source, last March alone Danish vessel Marianne Danika made to trips from the Bulgarian Burgas to the Saudi Jeddah, carrying tons of weapons that are now delivered to Syria via Turkey or Jordan. The newspaper is convinced that there is a network for the delivery of weapons to all sorts of terrorist groups under the guise of arming the “Free Syrian Army”. In addition, Western intelligence agencies are financing radical terrorist groups directly, thus enabling the latter to buy weapons on the black market.

Due to the fact that a handful of reports published by various media sources on the ongoing illegal arms deliveries to terrorists continues to go unnoticed by both the UN and the leading Western politicians, the question arises: why there’s been no credible investigation launched to investigate those allegations?

Or maybe there are structures and politicians who, while being tasked with fighting terrorism are in fact encouraging it, making millions of dollars from such arms sales?

Martin Berger is a freelance journalist and geopolitical analyst, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”