Iraqi Prime Minister Al-Abadi admitted that a year ago, during the capture of the city of Mosul, ISIS militants recaptured more than two thousand Americans from the Iraqi army. The statement followed a few weeks after the Pentagon announced the capture of Abrams tanks by extremists in Iraq. Jihadists have already mastered the captured equipment and are transferring it to Syria.

The most powerful howitzers, cannons, tanks shoot without aiming, they take in quantity. Volleys stop only when the weapon overheats. Machine guns in the backs of pickup trucks for ISIS militants are already the last century. Almost all of their divisions are now equipped with the most advanced American-made equipment. And if earlier this was perceived as the bravado of terrorists, today it has been recognized by Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi. "The losses of the Iraqi army are huge, and it is impossible to recover them. In Mosul alone, we lost 2,300 Humvee military vehicles," he says.

The militants have already mastered the machines. Most of them are equipped with heavy machine guns - 600 rounds per minute. At a distance of up to one and a half kilometers, it pierces almost any armor. Also on the roof of American cars is an MK-19 grenade launcher. In the event of a direct hit, it shatters any cover to pieces. But the weapons are more serious - the militants raised the black flag of the ISIS terrorist group over the Abrams tank - this is the main combat vehicle of the US Army. Fires a projectile every 10 seconds. The rate of fire is 8 rounds per minute. The armor can withstand anti-tank guns.

By the way, the militants do not have to look for ammunition. There is footage of one of the ISIS terrorists inspecting a weapon that they say was dropped by a US warplane for the Iraqi army. However, the pilot apparently missed. American channels tell other versions of where the militants get their weapons from. “In the basements of military bases, they find huge stockpiles of shells for all types of weapons,” says former member of the US National Security Council Douglas Olivant. work in the region of American aviation".

Despite the fact that American aviation has been in the air for 7 months now, the terrorist group captures more and more new settlements every day. Today, militants control almost half of Syria and a third of Iraq. One of the largest cities in Iraq - Ramadi, with a population of 200 thousand people, has now almost completely come under the control of militants.

They are getting stronger every day due to the fact that more and more weapons are in their hands. And now these are not rusty restored machines, but modern models. According to the arms control organization Conflict Armament Research, which analyzed thousands of shell casings fired by militants, 20 percent of the cartridges were American-made.

Among the most common examples is the famous M16 rifle, also the Croatian Elmech 92 sniper rifle, the Austrian Glock is used as a pistol. “Former officers and generals of Saddam Hussein’s army act as commanding officers on the side of ISIS,” says Konstantin Sivkov, first vice president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems. combat experience. The Americans were not particularly involved in their training. That is, the Iraqi military could not fully use the potential of modern powerful equipment that was left in Iraq."

Until the moment when ISIS can take possession of nuclear weapons, experts say, there is no more than a year left. Curiously, only Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose overthrow Western leaders regularly talk about, can resist ISIS at the moment. The Iraqi army, which was trained by American instructors for several years, is now unable to defend itself or the country. The region is plunged into chaos. Today it became known that militants opened a hospital in the former palace of Saddam Hussein, from where they sell human organs. They sell for 10-20 dollars per body.

"Habibi! Aluminum!"

A loud exclamation echoes through the cluttered backyard of a house in the city of Tall Afar, far in northern Iraq. It's the end of September, but it's still hot outside. The heat seems to be flowing from everywhere, even rising from the ground. The city itself is empty, except for feral stray dogs and young people with hands.

"Habibi!" shouts Damien Spleeters again. So he affectionately calls in Arabic his Iraqi translator and local colleague Haider al-Hakim (Haider al-Hakim).

Spleeters is a field investigator for the EU-funded international organization Conflict Armament Research (CAR), which monitors arms trafficking in war zones. He is 31 years old, has a Freddie Mercury mustache from the 1980s, and his thin arms, quickly tanned under the southern sun, are covered with tattoos. In a different setting, he might be mistaken for a hipster bartender, rather than an investigator who has spent the past three years spying on the smuggling trade in grenade launchers in Syria, AK-47 assault rifles in Mali, and hundreds of other weapons and ammunition that in various ways they get into the war zones, sometimes in violation of existing international agreements. The work that Spleeters does is usually done by secret government agencies, such as the Defense Intelligence Agency's Military Materials Identification Unit, known as the Chuckwagon (camping kitchen). But if the word Chuckwagon in Google can be found with great difficulty, then Spleeters' detailed reports for CAR are always available on the Internet in the public domain, and you can find much more useful information in them than all the intelligence that I received while commanding in 2006 in Iraq by the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit.
In that war, militants blew up American soldiers with improvised explosive devices. Those devices that I met during my business trips, the militants basically buried them in the ground or set them into action by putting them in a car, which in this case turned into a large moving bomb. Such cars were blown up in the markets and at schools, and after the explosions, the sewers were filled with blood. But mostly they were crudely made primitive devices, the details of which were glued together with adhesive tape and epoxy. The few rockets and mines that did reach the militants were old, of poor quality, often lacked the right detonators, and did not always explode.

Many leaders of ISIS were veterans of this insurgency, and when they went to war against the Iraqi government in 2014, they were well aware that in order to seize territories and create their own independent Islamic state, only improvised explosive devices and Kalashnikov assault rifles will not be enough for them. For a serious war, you need serious weapons, such as mortars, rockets, grenades, but ISIS, being an outcast in the international arena, could not buy it in sufficient quantities. They took something from the Iraqi and Syrian government forces, but when they ran out of ammunition for these weapons, the Islamists did what no terrorist organization had done before: they began to design their own ammunition, and then proceeded to mass-produce them using fairly modern manufacturing technologies. The Iraqi oilfields became a manufacturing base for them because they had tools and dies, high-quality cutting machines, injection molding machines - and skilled workers who knew how to quickly turn complex parts to specified dimensions. They obtained raw materials by dismantling pipelines and remelting scrap metal. ISIS engineers have been churning out new fuses, new missiles and launchers, and small bombs that the fighters have dropped from drones. All this was done and assembled in accordance with plans and drawings made by responsible ISIS functionaries.

Since the start of the conflict, CAR has conducted 83 inspection trips to Iraq gathering information about weapons, and Spliter has been involved in almost all investigations. As a result, a detailed and extensive database was created, which included 1,832 weapons and 40,984 ammunition found in Iraq and Syria. CAR calls it "the most complete collection of samples of weapons and ammunition captured from ISIS to date."

And so this fall, Spleeters found himself in a sleazy house in Tal Afar, where he sat over an 18-liter bucket of aluminum powder paste and waited for his assistant to appear. Al-Hakim is a bald, well-dressed man, somewhat reminiscent of a sophisticated urban snob, which sometimes makes him seem like a foreign body in a littered ISIS workshop. Men easily established contact and mutual understanding, but at the same time Al-Hakim acts as a host, and Spleeters is always a respectful guest. Their job is to notice the little things. Where others see rubbish, they find clues, which Spleeters then photographs and examines for subtle serial numbers that may reveal the origin of the find.

For example, with regard to aluminum paste, ISIS masters mix it with ammonium nitrate and get a powerful explosive for mines and rocket warheads. Spleeters found the same buckets, from the same manufacturers and vendors, in Fallujah, Tikrit and Mosul. “I love it when I see the same stuff in different cities,” he tells me. The fact is that repeated finds allow him to identify and describe various links in the ISIS supply chain. "This confirms my industrial revolution theory of terrorism," Spleeters says. “And also why they need raw materials on an industrial scale.”

Spleeters is constantly looking for new types of weapons and ammunition in order to understand how the expertise and professionalism of ISIS engineers is developing. When he arrived in Tall Afar, he seized on a promising new trail: a series of modified rockets that appeared in ISIS propaganda videos that the organization shows on YouTube and other social networks.
Spleeters suspected that the fuze tubes, detonation mechanisms, and fins for the new missiles were made by ISIS engineers, but he believed the warheads came from somewhere else. Having discovered several types of similar munitions over the past six months, he concluded that ISIS may have seized live ammunition from Syrian anti-government forces that were secretly supplied with weapons by Saudi Arabia and the United States of America.

But to prove it, he needed additional evidence and evidence. Spleeters believes that if he manages to find more launchers and munitions, he will be able to obtain for the first time enough evidence that the Islamic State is using powerful US-supplied munitions in combat operations against the Iraqi army and its American special forces partners. ISIS itself could hardly make such modern ammunition. This would mean that he had new and very serious opportunities and aspirations. These circumstances also provide an unsettling glimpse into the future nature of warfare, where any faction, anywhere, can start homegrown weapons production using materials from the internet and 3D printing.

Almost all military ammunition, from rifle cartridges to aircraft bombs, is marked in some way, regardless of country of origin. Conventional marking allows you to determine the date of manufacture, the manufacturing plant, the type of explosive used as a filler, as well as the name of the weapon, which is called the nomenclature. For Spleeters, this marking is a document "that cannot be forged." Stamped impressions on hardened steel are very difficult to remove or remake. “If it says that the ammunition is from such and such a country, it is 99% true,” he says. - And if not, then you can still determine that it is a fake. And this is something completely different. Every detail matters."

At the Iraqi military base at Tal Afar one afternoon, Spleeters was setting up 7.62mm cartridges to photograph the markings on each case. At that moment, I told him that I had never met a person who loved ammunition so much. “I take it as a compliment,” he said with a smile.

This love began when Spleeters was still a freshly minted reporter working for a newspaper in his native Belgium. “There was a war going on in Libya at the time,” he says of the 2011 civil war. He really wanted to understand how Belgian-made rifles got to the rebels who fought against Gaddafi. He believed that if this connection was revealed, the Belgian public would become interested in this conflict, to which they showed no attention.

Spleeters began looking through Belgian diplomatic correspondence for more information on secret government deals, but this did little to help him. He decided that the only way to get to the bottom of what was happening was to go to Libya himself and personally trace the path of these rifles. He bought a plane ticket, using the money from the grant, and set to work. “You know, it was a little weird,” he says. “I took a leave of absence to go to Libya.”
Spliters found the rifles he was looking for. He also found that this kind of search gave him much more satisfaction than reading materials about these weapons on the Internet. “A lot can be written about weapons,” he said. - Weapons untie people's tongues. It can even make the dead speak." Spleeters returned to Belgium as a freelance journalist. He has written several articles on the arms trade for French-language newspapers, as well as a couple of reports for think tanks such as the Geneva Small Arms Survey. However, the life of a freelancer turned out to be very unstable, and so Spleeters put aside his journalistic pen and joined Conflict Armament Research in 2014 as a full-time investigator.

During one of his first assignments for this organization in the Syrian city of Kobani, he worked among the dead ISIS fighters, whose bodies were thrown directly onto the battlefield, where they rotted and decomposed. Spleeters found one AK-47 assault rifle with bits of rotting meat lodged in the curves and grooves of the forearm and wooden grip. There was a sweetish smell of decay and decay everywhere. Among the corpses, he also found 7.62 mm cartridges, PKM machine guns and ammunition for an RPG-7 grenade launcher. Some of these weapons were stolen from the Iraqi army. These findings convinced him of the great value of field work. He says the information he has is impossible to get by watching news and videos online. “In all these social networks, when I see ammunition or small arms from a distance, sometimes I get the impression that “well, yes, this is an M16.” But if you look closely, it becomes clear that this is a Chinese CQ-556 rifle, which is a copy of the M16. But to understand it, you have to look closely, "he tells me, adding that the camera hides much more than it shows. And if you look at the weapon in person, it may turn out that it is from a different manufacturer, and thus has a different origin. About you can hardly guess from watching a grainy YouTube video.

The war between ISIS and Iraqi government forces is a series of intense hostilities that are fought on the streets of cities from house to house. In late 2016, as government forces battled ISIS over the northern city of Mosul, Iraqis discovered that the Islamic State was producing large-caliber munitions in clandestine factories throughout the area. To study these munitions factories in Mosul, Spleeters traveled there while the fighting was still going on. On one occasion, while Spleeters was photographing a weapon amid the whistle of flying bullets, he saw an Iraqi bodyguard who was supposed to guard him try to cut off the head of a dead ISIS fighter with a butcher's knife. The blade of the knife was blunt, and the soldier was upset. Finally, he moved away from the corpse.

From Mosul, Spleeters brought back some important information. But coalition airstrikes had destroyed much of the city, and by the time government forces announced victory in July, much of the evidence had already been destroyed or lost. As ISIS began to lose ground in Iraq, Spleeters became concerned that the group's weapons production system could be destroyed before he or anyone else could document its full potential. He needed to get to these factories before they were destroyed. Only then could he describe their contents, understand their origins, and identify supply chains.

At the end of August, ISIS combat units were very quickly driven out of Tall Afar. Unlike other devastated cities, there was relatively little destruction in Tall Afar. Only every fourth house was destroyed there. To find additional evidence and information about the secret production and supply of weapons, Spleeters needed to get to this city very quickly.

In mid-September, Spleeters flew to Baghdad, where he met with Al-Hakim. Then, guarded by an Iraqi military convoy of truckloads of machine guns, he drove north for nine hours on a highway that had only recently been cleared of improvised explosive devices. The last section of the road to Tall Afar was deserted, pitted with explosions. The burnt fields around the road were black.

The Iraqi army controls the southern districts of Tal Afar, while Iranian-backed militias (mostly Shiites) from the Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Forces) control the north of the city. Relations between them are very tense. My driver was Kurdish and he didn't speak English well. When we approached the first checkpoint, and this man saw the flag of the Hashd al-Shaabi militants, he turned to me with alarm.

“I am not a curdi. You are not America,” he said. We were silent at the checkpoint, and they let us through.

We arrived in Tal Afar on a hot evening. We made our first stop in a fenced area where, according to Al-Hakim, a mosque could be located. There, at the entrance, lay several shells for a bombing installation. At first glance, they have a very simple design, and they look like standard American and Soviet mortar shells. But if the mines have standard calibers (60mm, 81mm, 82mm, 120mm, etc.), then these projectiles are 119.5mm to match the inside diameter of the steel pipes that ISIS uses as a launcher. Such a difference may seem like a trifle, but the projectile must fit very tightly into the launch tube so that sufficient pressure of the powder gases arises there to eject it. ISIS has very strict tolerances and quality requirements, sometimes down to tenths of a millimeter.


Ammunition confiscated from ISIS fighters (banned in Russia) near Mosul

At the back of the building were several tanks connected by a steel pipe, as well as large barrels of black liquid. Something was dripping from one tank, and some disgusting growths formed on it. "Do you think it's rust?" Spleeters asks Al-Hakim. It is clear that the liquid is toxic. It looks like the vomit of a drunk who vomited right on his shirt. But Spleeters can't take samples and run tests. He has no laboratory instruments, no protective suit, no gas mask.

“It stings my eyes,” says Al-Hakim. There is a pungent, irritating smell in the yard, as if paint had just been spilled there. Nearby are bags of caustic soda for disinfection.

“Yeah, everything here is somehow suspicious,” Spliters agrees with Al-Hakim. We're leaving soon. The black liquid could be a napalm-type incendiary or some kind of noxious industrial chemical, but Spleeters can't say for sure what is being produced in these tanks. (He would later learn that he could identify the manufacturing process if he took better photos of the pressure gauges and their serial numbers. No matter what information he gathered on the ground, Spleeters says, he always feels like he forgot something. .)

After a short drive through quiet, shell-riddled streets, we arrive at an unremarkable building that looks like every other house on the block. Stone wall, iron gates, separate rooms around the patio, shady, cool trees. Among the abandoned shoes and bed linen, mortars and artillery shells lay strewn about. Spleeters expertly shoves them aside casually.

At the back of the courtyard, he notices something unusual. A neat hole was punched in the concrete wall - you can immediately see that it was made by hand, and not by a shell. Behind the wall is a large open space, where there are a lot of tools and half-assembled ammunition. It is covered with a tarpaulin to hide the contents from enemy drones. The smell of machine oil is in the air.

Spliters immediately understands what kind of place this is. This is not a warehouse, which he saw and photographed in large quantities. This is a production shop.

On the table, he notices small bombs that ISIS makes. Such a bomb has an injection-molded plastic body and a small tail for stabilization in the air. These bombs can be dropped from drones, which we often see on videos on the Internet. But they can also be fired from grenade launchers of AK-47 assault rifles.

Near the site for the manufacture of fuses. On the floor near the lathe lie heaps of shiny shavings in the form of a spiral. Most often, ISIS fuses resemble a conical silver plug with a safety pin threaded through the body. The design of the fuse is elegantly minimalist, although it is far from being as simple as it seems. The originality of this device is its interchangeability. The standard ISIS fuse detonates all of its rockets, bombs and mines. Thus, the militants managed to solve a serious engineering problem. In the interests of safety and security, the US and most other countries create separate fuses for each type of ammunition. But ISIS fuses are modular, safe, and according to some experts, they rarely misfire.

Spliters continues his work at the back of the factory yard. And then he notices something special - those converted rockets that he was looking for. They are at various stages of manufacture and preparation, and assembly instructions are written on the walls with a felt-tip pen. Dozens of combat units of dismantled ammunition are waiting for their turn to be reworked. They lie in a dark outbuilding on a long table next to calipers and small containers for improvised explosives. Each individual workplace is in itself a treasure trove of information that provides a visual representation of ISIS' weapons and munitions program. But the jobs are plentiful, and so the abundance of evidence creates a kind of sensory overload. “Oh my God, look at this. And look here. God, get over there. God, God, wow,” mutters an amazed Spleeters as he moves from one job to the next, like Charlie in a chocolate factory.

However, night falls on Tall Afar, and there is no electricity in the city. This means that Spleeters will no longer be able to study his treasures and photograph specimens in natural light. Soon our convoy returns to the Iraqi military base, located not far from the destroyed city airport. It is a small outpost of refurbished trailers, half riddled with bullets. Sleeping in the trailer next to us are two detained militants who are suspected of belonging to ISIS. This is a young man and an older man. They seem to be the only ones captured during the Battle of Tall Afar. Spleeters spends the evening impatiently watching satellite TV. During all the time that we spent together, he did almost nothing except work and food, and slept only a few hours.

It dawned quite early, and when the soldiers woke up, Spleeters returned, escorted by an escort, to the workshop. He pulls out 20 yellow crime scene stickers, one for each table. He then draws a diagram to later reconstruct the configuration of that room. In one place in this diagram, it denotes welding electrodes, in another, a grinding machine. “No, this is not a streaming process,” he muses aloud. “Most likely, these are different working areas for the manufacture of different things.”

Then Spleeters begins to take pictures, but suddenly the entire room is filled with Iraqi intelligence officers who have learned about this small factory. They open all the drawers, take out every electrical board, kick shavings and scraps of metal, take away papers, pull handles. Unused ammunition is fairly safe if not thrown with the fuse head down, but disassembled projectiles and mines are highly unpredictable. In addition, there may be booby traps inside the workshop. But that's not what Spleeters is worried about. He gets desperate for something else.

“Habibi,” he declares, “it is necessary that they do not touch anything here and do not take it away. It is important that everything is together, because the whole point is to study it together. If they take something away, everything will be meaningless. Can you tell them that?"

“I told them,” Al-Hakim replies.

"They can do whatever they want when I'm done," Spleeters says wearily.

In a small room adjacent to the launch tube manufacturing area, Spleeters begins to study dozens of grenades of various models for grenade launchers. Some of them were made many years ago, and each has a certain identification mark. Bulgarian-made grenades bear the number "10" or "11" in a double circle. The green paint used by China and Russia varies slightly in hue. “In Iraq, we are at war with the whole world,” a soldier boasted to me two days earlier, referring to the many foreign fighters recruited by ISIS. But exactly the same impression arises when you look at weapons from various countries, concentrated in one room.

Splitters carefully inspects the warheads stacked in rows of rockets, and finally finds what he needs. "Habibi, I found a PG-9 projectile," he exclaims, looking in Al-Hakim's direction. This is a Romanian rocket with batch number 12-14-451. Spleeters has been looking for that exact serial number for the past year. In October 2014, Romania sold 9,252 PG-9 grenades with lot number 12-14-451 for grenade launchers to the US military. By purchasing this ammunition, the United States signed the end user certificate. This is a document confirming that this ammunition will only be used by the US Army and will not be transferred to anyone. The Romanian government confirmed the sale by providing CAR with an end user certificate and a proof of delivery of the goods.

However, in 2016, Spleeters saw an ISIS video showing a crate of PG-9 rounds. He thought he noticed batch number 12-14-451. The ammunition was seized from the Syrian militant group Jaish Suriya al-Jadid. Somehow, PG-9s from this batch ended up in Iraq, where ISIS technicians separated the stolen grenades from the starting powder charge, and then improved them, adapting them to combat in urban conditions. Grenade launchers cannot be fired inside buildings due to the dangerous jet blast. But by attaching a ballast to the grenade, the engineers created such ammunition that can be used in combat operations inside buildings.

So how did American weapons end up in the hands of ISIS? Spliters can't say for sure yet. On July 19, 2017, the Washington Post reported that U.S. officials secretly trained and armed Syrian rebels from 2013 until mid-2017, when the Trump administration ended the training program, in part fearing U.S. weapons could end up in the wrong hands. The US government has not responded to multiple requests for comment on how the weapons ended up in the hands of Syrian rebels and an ISIS munitions factory. The government also declined to say whether or not the United States violated the terms of its end-user certificate and, accordingly, whether it is in compliance with the terms of the UN arms trade treaty that it signed along with 130 other countries.

It seems that other countries also buy and resell weapons. CAR traced how Saudi Arabia bought various types of weapons, which were then found in ISIS militant units. In one case, Spleeters checked the flight plan of an aircraft that was supposed to deliver 12 tons of ammunition to Saudi Arabia. Documents show that this plane did not land in Saudi Arabia, but flew to Jordan. Sharing a border with Syria, Jordan is well known to be a transfer point for weapons to rebels fighting the Assad regime. Although the Saudis could claim that the weapons were stolen or seized, they did not. The people in charge of the flight insist that the plane with the weapons landed in Saudi Arabia, although the flight documents refute this. The Saudi government did not respond to a request for comment on how its weapons ended up in the hands of ISIS.

“This is war,” Spleeters says. - It's a fucking mess. Nobody knows what's going on and that's why conspiracy theories always come up. We live in a post-truth era where facts no longer matter. And I, doing this work, can sometimes seize on irrefutable facts.

Much of the new generation of terrorism and scenarios for future wars involve the use of artificial intelligence, unmanned aerial vehicles and self-propelled vehicles loaded with explosives. But this is only part of it, reflecting the fears of American engineers about the many opportunities to use new technologies. The other, much more dangerous part of this story concerns the ISIS technicians. These people have already shown that they can produce weapons that are not inferior to what the military industry of states does. And over time, it will be even easier for them to establish a production process, as 3D printing is widespread in the world. Joshua Pearce, an engineering educator at Michigan Technological University, is an expert on open hardware, and he says ISIS's manufacturing process has "very insidious features." In the future, schematic drawings of weapons can be downloaded from secret sites on the Internet, or received through popular social networks with encryption, such as WhatsApp. These files can then be loaded into metal-based 3D printers, which have become widespread in recent years and cost no more than a million dollars, including set-up. Thus, weapons can be made by simply pressing a button.

“Making weapons using layer-by-layer printing technology is much easier than it seems,” says August Cole, director of the Art Of Future Word project, who works for the Atlantic Council (Atlantic Сouncil). The pace of expansion of ISIS intellectual capital depends on the number of young engineers joining the ranks of its affiliates. According to Oxford University researchers, at least 48% of jihadist recruits from non-Western countries went to college, and almost half of them studied engineering. Of the 25 participants in the September 11 attacks, at least 13 were university students and eight were engineers. Among them are the two main organizers of the attacks, Mohammed Atta and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Mohammed received a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of North Carolina. The Associated Press reported that he, while in an American prison, received permission to create a vacuum cleaner from scratch. Is it a pointless hobby, as the CIA officials claim, or is it a hallmark of an inventor? Mohammed downloaded the drawings of the vacuum cleaner on the Internet.

Spleeters had only two days to explore the munitions factories at Tall Afar. On the last evening, he was in a hurry, trying to do as much work as possible. ISIS uses methods of distributed production. Each section specializes in a specific task, like a car factory. And Spleeters tried to describe and document all these sites and jobs. “We only have one hour left,” he said, looking at the sun as it sank inexorably towards the horizon. At the first plant, Spleeters found a huge smelting furnace, around which lay raw materials waiting for their turn to be melted down: engine parts, scrap metal, piles of copper wire. There were also vices with molds for fuses, next to them lay plumage for mortar shells. All this awaited its turn for assembly in the next workshop. These works were carried out on the ground floor of a three-story building that was once a market. The stove was also set on the lower level, because it was incredibly hot. The entire city of Tal Afar was turned into a manufacturing base.

Spleeters quickly finishes collecting evidence. "Is there anything left?" he asks an Iraqi army major. “Yes, there is,” the major replies, approaching the next door. There is a large stove in the lobby, which ISIS fighters have covered with their handprints, dipping them in paint. It looked like a children's picture of first-graders. Clay molds for the mass production of 119.5 mm shells lay in the corridors. In the next courtyard there is a kind of research laboratory. Everywhere there are ammunition, new and old, lighting shells, cut-away models. The tables are littered with dismantled fuses and huge 220 mm ammunition. This is the largest caliber created by ISIS engineers. In addition, there were large pipes used as launchers. They were about the size of a telephone pole.

The sun is starting to set. Spliters asks again if there is anything else. The Major again answers in the affirmative. We visited six factories in 24 hours, and I understand that no matter how many times Spleeters asks his question, the answer will always be the same. But evening comes, and Spleeters' time is running out. The remaining plants will remain unsurveyed, at least until the next time.

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How the system of supplying ammunition to the "Islamic State" is arranged.

Abu Ali traded weapons, supplied ammunition to rebels fighting ISIS (a group banned in Russia) in his hometown in eastern Syria. So when a jeep pulled up next to him a year ago and two jihadist commanders headed towards him, he decided his days were numbered.

However, he was handed a printed sheet with the following text:

"This person is allowed to buy and sell all types of weapons inside the Islamic State."

“There was even a Mosul Center seal,” Ali recalls.

Last year, when ISIS took over many lands in eastern Syria, black market arms dealers like Abu Ali feared they would be expelled or killed, but that didn't happen. Instead, they built themselves into a complex system, which supplies the Islamic State with ammunition throughout the caliphate zone, covering half of Syria and a third of Iraq.

Abu Ali, who, like many who operate in ISIS-controlled territory, asks not to be identified by his real name, says:

"They are continuously buying guns - morning, afternoon and night."

In the summer of 2014, the Islamic State fighters captured hundreds of millions of dollars in weapons after capturing Mosul. And each battle won increases their equipment. Their arsenal includes American Abrams tanks, M16 rifles and MK-19 grenade launchers taken from the Iraqi army and Russian 130mm M-46 field guns captured from the Syrians.

But, according to dealers, ammunition is constantly needed. The greatest demand is for cartridges for Kalashnikov assault rifles, medium-caliber machine guns and anti-aircraft guns 14.5 and 12.5 mm. ISIS also buys rocket-propelled grenades and sniper rifle rounds, but in smaller quantities.

It is difficult to calculate the exact turnover of this trade. Based on interviews with fighters and dealers, skirmishes along the front line near the city of Deir ez-Zor - and this is just one of the places where the fighting takes place - should take about $ 1 million a month of ammunition. A week-long attack on a nearby airport last December would have cost another million, they said.

The lack of ammunition is reflected in the way the war is waged, with ISIS militants using booby-trapped trucks, "live bombs" and improvised explosives. But constantly flaring firefights, typically involving Kalashnikov assault rifles and pickup trucks with machine guns in the back, can consume tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition a day, and supply trucks bring ammunition to different parts of the front every day.

To ensure this flow of ammunition, ISIS has built a complex logistical system, which is given great importance - it is directly monitored by the supreme military council, that is, part of the leadership of the group. The oil trade, the main source of income for the Islamic State, is managed in this way.

The best source of ammo is the enemy. For example, pro-government militias sell weapons on the black market, from where they end up with jihadists.

But above all, in this matter, ISIS fighters rely on their immediate opponents in Syria - Assad's government forces and the rebels. Here an important role is played dealers. When Abu Ali was approached to be one of them, he fled, but another black market veteran, Abu Omar, in his sixties, stayed behind and plunged headlong into the trade. He says:

“We buy from Assad’s troops, from the rebels, from the Iraqis… if we could buy from the Israelis, ISIS would be fine with that too – they don’t care where the weapons come from.”

Now, sipping whiskey in a Turkish bar, Omar recounts his year of work for the jihadists. In August, he decided to give up the trade, deciding that ISIS was too brutal a regime for him.

The Islamist command provides the dealer with a stamped ID certified by two members of the ISIS security forces. The grouping requires exclusivity: the dealer is free to move and trade, but the Islamic State wants to be the only customer.

Jihadist opponents marvel at their ability to quickly move huge stockpiles of ammunition during battles. In northern Iraq, Kurdish fighters have unearthed detailed records of arms and ammunition shipments for the just-concluded attack. An Iraqi security official who asked not to be identified says:

"They received ammunition by road within 24 hours of the request."

Fighters and dealers pay tribute to the speed of jihadist communications. They explain that a mobile "committee", appointed by the highest military council in Iraq, constantly communicates with "arms centers" in each province, who in turn receive requests from the military emirs.

Sometimes the radio exchange between the emirs and the "centers" is heard by the enemy. For example, on the border between Iraq and Syria, Kurdish fighters hear talk of “kebab”, “chicken tikka” or “salad” on ISIS frequencies.

Abu Ahmad, an eastern Syrian rebel commander who fought for ISIS before fleeing to Turkey this summer, says the kebab is likely a heavy machine gun. “Salad - cartridges for Kalashnikov. There's a mixture: explosive bullets, penetrating,” he laughs.

Abu Omar says that he contacted the "centers" through system whatsapp instant messaging. Every few days, the mobile committee sends out a price list to the "centers" with prices for the most common types of grenades and cartridges. The "centre" to which Abu Omar was attached wrote to him about any price changes. Dealers say their commissions range from 10% to 20%.

Abu Ahmad explains that as the US-backed coalition pushes the group away from the Turkish border, limiting smuggling opportunities, prices are rising. To increase competition and lower prices, ISIS is issuing additional licenses, one dealer said, and dealers are bidding each other deals.

In general, Syria is currently the main source of weapons for the region. Gulf sponsors send truckloads of ammunition across the Turkish border to rebel groups they support, and unscrupulous fighters sell it to local dealers; the border provinces of Idlib and Aleppo, according to locals, have become the largest black markets in the country. Abu Ahmad says that after five years of war, ideology no longer matters:

“Some of the dealers hate ISIS. But what difference does it make if it makes a profit.”

Dealers use drivers and smugglers to smuggle weapons under the guise of vegetables and building materials. Abu Ahmad says:

“Movement is crazy, and it's always some harmless things at first sight. Fuel trucks are often used as they go back to ISIS territory empty.”

Another source of weapons is ammunition from Moscow and Tehran destined for Assad. This is typical, for example, for Es-Suwayda. Abu Omar says:

"They love Russian weapons more, and Iranian ones are cheaper."

In a region where there are few opportunities to earn money, it is impossible to stop illegal trade. Every time the next dealer runs away, there are a lot of people who want to take his place.

Abu Omar says: “No one cares who you are. Only money matters."

Their success consists in capturing military hardware from fleeing Iraqi soldiers. When ISIS took over Mosul, they seized weapons, which allowed them to hold on to the full force, not the rabble of the rebels.

"There was equipment loss for three divisions," said Anthony Cordesman, a security analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

A large number of weapons that were seized in Mosul were supplied by the US to the Iraqi army. The terrorists are also armed with weapons produced in the USSR (Russia), China, the Balkans, and Iran.

T-55 tanks

A series of T-55 tanks were produced by the Soviet Union from the end of World War II until the 1980s. Experts estimate that ISIS has about 30 of these tanks, but it is not known how well the organization can maintain and manage them.

Despite their age, these tanks are still used in about 50 armies around the world. They have heavy armor, as well as a 100 mm cannon and a 7.62 mm machine gun.

Tanks T-72

The T-72 tank is a second-generation Soviet battle tank. The tank first entered production in 1971, and they are still being produced off the assembly line. ISIS has between five and ten T-72 tanks, although it is not known if the terrorists will be able to keep them in working order and cope with repairs. The T-72 is heavily armored and has a 125mm cannon.

Hummers

ISIS took possession of the Hummers during the storming of Mosul, the US provided them to the Iraqi army. Hummers allow you to move quickly and efficiently over rough terrain. Their heavy armor also protects the force from small arms fire as well as the collateral damage of indirect explosions. There is also little protection against landmines or buried improvised explosive devices.

ISIS does not have a large selection of rifles, the AK-47 has become their standard assault rifle due to its low cost, durability, availability and ease of use.

The AK-47 was originally developed by Soviet designers but quickly spread to other armies and irregular forces around the world.

M79 Wasp

The M79 Wasp fires a 90mm projectile that is very effective against tanks and fortified positions. Journalist Elliot Higgins, better known as Brown Moses, believes that these weapons originated in Croatia before they were supplied to the Syrian rebels by Saudi Arabia. ISIS has used these devastating missiles against armored vehicles of the Iraqi security forces.

RBG-6 grenade launchers

This semi-automatic grenade launcher is lightweight and designed for infantry. Saudi Arabia has imported Croatian RBG-6s to Syria, according to Brown Moses. Eventually the RBG-6s fell into the hands of ISIS and are now also in use in Iraq.

Iraq is provided with RPG-7 grenade launchers, as are the Iraqi security forces, the Kurdish Peshmerga and ISIS. RPG-7 portable, shoulder-launched anti-tank grenade launcher. These systems are durable, easy to use and relatively low cost. Grenades can reach up to 920 meters, but at a very long distance they can self-destruct without hitting the target.

M198 howitzers

The medium sized M198 howitzer was developed for service with the US Army after World War II. The M198 can launch projectiles at a distance of at least 22 km. This howitzer can launch a variety of munitions, including explosives, rocket projectiles, and white phosphorus. ISIS likely captured howitzers from the Iraqi army after they left their bases.

Field gun 59-1

The Type 59-1 is a Chinese copy of the Soviet M-46 M1954 towed field gun. The M-46 was first issued by the Soviets in 1954. At one time, the M-46 was the longest-range artillery system in the world with a maximum range of 27 km. The Type 59-1 is a licensed Chinese copy of the much lighter M-46. Both Syrian and Iraqi military personnel used the Type 59-1

Anti-aircraft guns ZU-23-2

ZU-23-2 - Soviet anti-aircraft automatic guns, produced from 1960 to the present day. It fires 23mm rounds at 400 rounds per minute. The ZU-23-2 can effectively shoot out to 3 km, and is designed to strike at low-flying targets and armored vehicles. This weapon was used in the Syrian civil war and is also in the arsenal of the Iraqi army.

"Stinger"

The Stinger is an infrared, shoulder-fired surface-to-air homing missile. Originally developed in the USA and put into service in 1981, these MANPADS are extremely dangerous and can effectively take down helicopters and airplanes.

Stingers require specialized maintenance and care. Most likely FIM-92 went to ISIS from Iraqi military bases.

The HJ-8 is an anti-tank missile that has been manufactured in China since the late 1980s. The HJ-8s have a range of up to 6000 meters and their system is based in part on the US BGM-71 TOW missile.

HJ-8s are very effective against armor, bunkers and fortifications. The Free Syrian Army has been using these missiles with great success against the Syrian Arab Army since June 2013.

Machine gun DShK 1938

The DShK 1938 is a Soviet heavy machine gun dating back to 1938. This machine gun was the standard of the Soviet Union during World War II and is still in production around the world. The DShK has several uses: as an anti-aircraft weapon and as a support weapon for heavy infantry. It can fire 600 shots per minute. The machine gun is also mounted on vehicles for ease of use and maneuverability. ISIS probably stole these machine guns from either the Syrian or Iraqi armies.

One of the most effective weapons of ISIS is their success in the media. The group regularly churns out propaganda videos. They have their own propaganda magazine in English, and tweet with hashtags for trending events to achieve maximum engagement with the audience. ISIS is armed for conventional warfare - and has years of experience campaigning in Syria and Iraq. With such an arsenal, ISIS can certainly dictate its own rules in the Middle East, but it is difficult for them to resist the high-tech armies of Russia, the United States and other European countries.

The militants of the Islamic State, until recently, actively pursued an occupation policy to seize large areas of Iraq and Syria. One of the secrets of success was the arming of terrorists.

Light weapons.

The human rights organization Amnesty International published a report according to which the militants of the "Islamic State" have a huge amount of weapons. It has been flowing uncontrollably to the Middle East for decades, mostly from the United States and its allies. According to the human rights activists of the international organization Amnesty International, weapons supplied even to "moderate" groups can easily change owners and end up in the hands of extremists. Terrorists use more than 100 types of weapons originating in about 25 countries.

Most of the modern weapons and ammunition (as a result of large-scale US deliveries), including armored vehicles of various classes, were seized by militants from the Iraqi army, which was retreating from Mosul, where military depots were located. "The variety of weaponry the group uses demonstrates how reckless arms dealing is leading to large-scale brutality," researcher Patrick Wilken was quoted as saying in the report.

Consider the report of the Conflict Armament Research (CAR) organization.

According to the organization, during the conflict in Iraq and Syria, bullets and cartridge cases produced in the United States were repeatedly found on the battlefield. More specifically, among the examined 1,700 weapon shells from cartridges used by jihadists, more than 20% were American-made. An interesting fact is the discovery of cartridge cases made in Iran, China, the USSR and a number of other countries of the former communist camp, manufactured since 1945. The main part of this ammunition was collected in Iraq and the northern part of Syria (Gatash, Khair).

Also, experts found a number of special finds. The first of these is the M-79 Osa hand-held anti-tank grenade launcher manufactured in Yugoslavia. It can fire 90mm rockets.

M79 "Wasp"

Experts say that it was these grenade launchers that Saudi Arabia supplied to the oppositionists of the Free Syrian Army in 2013. Thus, once again there is a connection between the ruling dynasty of the Saudis and the militants of the Islamic State (officially condemned by the government of Saudi Arabia). The next sample is an assault automatic rifle manufactured by Colt Defense and FN Manufacturing, which is in service with the United States Army. We are talking about the Colt M16A4 rifle (one of the latest modifications). Another type of American weaponry captured from jihadists is the XM15 E2S semi-automatic rifle - essentially the same M16, but so to speak, its “civilian version” manufactured by Bushmaster. According to researchers, both rifles were seized by Islamic State terrorists in military depots of the Iraqi army.


Bushmaster XM15-E2S

It should be noted that one of the main and mass types of militant weapons is a 7.62 mm Kalashnikov assault rifle. Specifically, samples of 1960, 1964 and 1970 were seized.

Speaking of high-precision weapons, it is worth mentioning the Croatian Elmech EM992 sniper rifle. It was created on the basis of the German magazine carbine developed in 1935 Mauser 98k, which was still in service in parts of the Third Reich. Another sniper rifle found by militants was a Chinese Type 79 7.62mm caliber. This copy is an exact copy of the SVD sniper rifle, which was produced in the USSR.


Elmech EM992

Based on the data obtained, the following main sources of weapons for ISIS can be identified:

  • syrian army warehouses,
  • iraq army depots,
  • weapons taken in battle
  • acquired in the process of active foreign trade.

Heavy armored vehicles, artillery.

Speaking about the presence of armored vehicles and artillery systems in ISIS militants, it is worth mentioning the words of Iraqi Prime Minister Al-Abadi about the capture of 2,300 US-made armored off-road vehicles with heavy small arms HUMVEE during the battles near Mosul in 2015.


An American soldier in the machine gun section of an armored car HUMVEE

The Pentagon, in turn, provided disappointing data on the presence, until recently, of more than a hundred American main battle tanks Abrams M1A1 in militants. Although supporters of the "conspiracy theory" claim that there was only a veiled transfer of technology to the so-called. "moderate opposition" to counter the "Assad regime" in Syria.

M1A1 Abrams

According to various sources, the army of the "caliphate" at the peak of its power had 140 Abrams tanks of the M1A1 modification. Almost all of them were captured during the ambush of the Iraqi military in Anbar province. This generation of tanks has been produced since 1984 and is equipped with a 120-mm smoothbore gun, forty rounds of ammunition, reinforced frontal armor and an integrated system for protecting the crew from weapons of mass destruction with the possibility of air conditioning. The cost of such a tank is about $4.3 million per unit.

As a result of the large-scale retreat of the Iraqi Army, the city of Ramadi with a population of 850 thousand people and hundreds of pieces of heavy equipment, including artillery, passed into the hands of the terrorists. According to preliminary estimates - 52 M198 Howitzer artillery towed howitzers worth $0.5 million per piece, manufactured in the United States. Development systems of the 1970s, produced in the amount of about 1700 units, are still in service with the armies of the United States, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Bahrain, Honduras, Greece, Lebanon, India, Pakistan, Tunisia, Ecuador, Thailand.


American military personnel firing from the M198 Howitzer

Do not forget that in addition to American military equipment, ISIS was armed with a large number of those produced by the Soviet Union, namely: also a Soviet medium tank, a continuation and modification of the T-55 vehicles, and light armored vehicles of the BMP and BRDM. The most modern model in this series was the Russian T-90 tank, captured from government troops more than six months ago. The machine went to the militants fully combat-ready, was resold several times and eventually “surfaced” in the battles in the province of Hama, however, its appearance will not play a special turning point, due to the presence of modern anti-tank weapons in the CAA.


T-90 tank captured by terrorists

A number of sources also indicate that the militants have multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) BM-21 and operational-tactical missile systems (OTRK) SCAD of the Iraqi army, built on the basis of Soviet ballistic missiles R-17. However, an extremely difficult technique to master, requiring qualified specialists and a number of other factors invisible to the layman, led to the fact that not a single SCAD missile took off.


Scud missile from Iraqi militants

Light armored vehicles. Motorized infantry.

The tactics of warfare in the conditions of Iraq and Syria require the presence of highly mobile units, which have become combat units based on pickups. Today, armed pickups can be found everywhere where the fighting takes place: in South American countries, where guerrillas are at war with the government, drug dealers with the law, and police with gangs, where special forces of law enforcement agencies use pickups for their own purposes. In Iraq, a machine gun mounted on a police car is the norm, while the larger the caliber, the better. In Afghanistan, combat pickups are called "technical" and they are used not only by terrorists, but by most of the special forces of the NATO contingent. Exactly the same situation is developing now in the territories of Syria and Iraq, where pickup trucks with installed heavy machine guns are used by all parties to the conflict, including the Special Operations Forces of the Russian Federation.

Among the many models of pickup trucks, the most popular among militants today is the Toyota Hilux. The US military compares this pickup truck in terms of reliability with a Kalashnikov assault rifle.


Syrian army vehicles. Photo: twitter.com/MathieuMorant

The main armament of such machines on the side of the IG was the DShKM heavy machine gun (or its Chinese counterpart "Type 54"). It is a modernized machine gun Degtyarev and Shpagin. Despite the fact that this type of weapon was adopted by the Red Army as early as 1938, it is still a formidable force today due to its high efficiency of shooting at armored targets and the rate of fire.

The second most popular installation on pickup trucks is the 14.5 mm Vladimirov heavy machine gun (KPVT), which poses a serious threat to light armored vehicles and aviation. Often, machine guns are simply removed from damaged armored vehicles, handles are welded to them, and a sight is installed. In addition, a significant part of the "technical" is equipped with launchers of unguided rockets. Basically, helicopter blocks installed on home-made machines are used in this role. But there are also absolutely handicraft samples, where there are no sights and missile stabilization, which makes such weapons ineffective.

It is worth noting that there are also pickup trucks equipped with truly formidable artillery weapons - a 107-mm Type 63 multiple launch rocket system made in China and an Egyptian-made quad launcher of 122-mm SACR rockets. However, firing from them often poses a threat to the terrorists themselves: a car carelessly left on the rise threatens to tip over and shoot itself, and a car may ignite or detonate ammunition in the back of a car from a rocket jet. As a means of direct fire support, ISIS terrorists use American 106-mm M40 recoilless rifles.

However, faced with the realities of combat in the city, the Teknikals began to be heavily armored. They additionally began to install armor plates in the front of the car, home-made shields for the machine gunner in the back. For these purposes, hatches from infantry fighting vehicles were often used.

The logic of choosing military pickups is understandable and is explained by the presence of a number of advantages:

- capacity: a ton of cargo or up to 20 fighters with weapons, which is not available to a regular jeep.

- in the event of a sudden shelling, the vehicle can be easily abandoned;

- speed of movement and sudden strike,

- the ability to install powerful weapons directly into the body, thus compensating for the lack of armored vehicles and aviation and artillery support.

Aviation

Caliphate fighters in the first year of the war in Syria and Iraq captured a number of American UH60 Black Hawk helicopters, MiG-21 and MiG-23 fighters of Soviet production. However, the complete air supremacy of the aviation of Russia and NATO countries, the establishment of Khmeimim and Tartus bases using anti-aircraft missile systems () and Pantsir-S1 did not allow these "trophies" to rise into the sky. Most of them were destroyed by government forces while still on the ground.

At the same time, the militants are actively using unmanned aerial vehicles based on commercial models of quadcopters and hexacopters. They are tuned with high-definition video cameras, reinforced batteries and mortar shells, hanging them on UAVs and dropping them over the positions of Iraqi and Syrian regular troops.

https://youtu.be/tuEZJ3n2I-w

air defense

IS fighters often use heavy machine guns and man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS) as air defense systems. On the defeated government bases, the terrorists were able to capture a small number of American Stinger complexes. Russian MANPADS "Strela", "Igla" and their foreign "replicas" are also in service with ISIS. With the help of these systems, they managed to shoot down several helicopters of government forces.


Militants armed with MANPADS "Stinger" (USA) in the back of a pickup truck

Anti-tank systems

RPG-7 grenade launchers became the main anti-tank weapons of the soldiers of the self-proclaimed caliphate - they are cheap and easy to operate. Among the captured weapons were a number of Konkurs, Fagot anti-tank guided systems and Chinese HJ-8 ATGMs capable of hitting targets at distances of up to three kilometers. The most modern anti-tank system, which militants use, including against helicopters at low altitudes or hovering, is the American TOW, supplied by the United States of the so-called. "moderate opposition" in Syria. They account for the main losses of government armored vehicles and the bulk of the "media" campaign of IS militants.

Mortars

Since the end of 2013, ISIS has begun mass production and use of self-made Hellfire mortars. They are self-made howitzers, the shells for which are household gas cylinders stuffed with an enhanced charge of ammonium nitrate and striking elements to increase the number of victims. As a means of ensuring explosions, a home-made fuse or a regular one from artillery ammunition is equipped. Such a "projectile" can be equipped with a chemical poisonous substance (proven cases of the use of mustard gas and mustard gas by militants are known). The accuracy of such weapons is quite low, but the destructive power is very high.


An ISIS terrorist loads a homemade projectile into a homemade mortar

Calculating ballistics with a tablet

Analyzing pictures from social networks and publicly available information on the Internet, it is clear that the militants use Apple iPads with the publicly available MBC (Mortar Ballistic Calculator) software for mortar guidance, which allows you to calculate the trajectory of mortar shells. By purchasing an application for little money and having data on wind, range to the target, etc. From the appropriate devices, easily available in online stores, IS militants can fire standard mortars with the necessary accuracy.

Summing up, it is worth saying that the weapons and military equipment of the militants described by us are by no means limited to the above. Due to the lack of weapons supplied on a regular basis and centrally, terrorists have to replace them with a motley mass of handicraft weapons and modified, converted, restored samples (such as the T-34 tank of the Great Patriotic War, which is fired like a gun remotely using a cord) .


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