Arms sales and fueling of world crisis BY ABDUL AJI Arms sales fuel crime, civil conflicts and human rights abuses, and yet the international trade of weapons is less regulated than the export of bananas. The arms industry is a global business that manufactures weapons and military technology and equipment. It consists of commercial industry involved in research and development, production, and the service of military material, equipment, and facilities. Arms producing companies, also referred to as defense contractors or military industry, produce arms mainly for the armed forces of states. Departments of government also operate in the arms industry, buying and selling weapons, munitions and other military items. Products include guns, ammunition, missiles, military aircraft, military vehicles, ships, electronic systems, and more. The arms industry also provides other logistical and operational support. According to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI, the volume of international transfers of major weapons in 2010 - 14 was 16% higher than in 2005–2009. The five biggest exporters in 2010 - 14 were the United States, Russia, China, Germany and France, and the five biggest importers were India, Saudi Arabia, China, the United Arab Emirates, UAE and Pakistan. Many industrialized countries have a domestic arms industry to supply their own military forces. Some countries also have a substantial legal or illegal domestic trade in weapons for use by its citizens. An illegal trade in small arms is prevalent in many countries and regions affected by political instability. The Small Arms Survey estimates 875 million small arms in circulation worldwide, produced by more than 1,000 companies from nearly 100 countries. Why are world terrorist groups like ISIS not running out of weapons and ammunition? Where do they continue getting arms? Where they are getting funds is very openly discussed. How they got hold of arms initially is also discussed. However who is selling them the ammunition is not known. Almost all the countries surrounding ISIS occupied territory seems to be opposing ISIS. Then how are they continuing getting ammunition? Do they have arms factories? The extremist militants of the so-called Islamic State are firing American bullets. An investigation by the European Union-funded Conflict Armament Research group found the Sunni militant group, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria or ISIS, primarily used ammunition manufactured in the United States, China and Russia. Investigators recovered more than 1,700 small-caliber munitions from the Kurdish regions of northern Iraq and northern Syria from July 22 to Aug. 15, 2015 to determine the origin of ISIS ammunition.
Islamic State militants are wielding arms manufactured in 21 different countries, including the United States, according to a new report released recently. The study of ammunition captured during the Islamic State's battles with Kurdish forces in northern Iraq and Syria in July and August highlights the diverse array of arms sources fueling the extremist group. Investigators from the arms monitoring group Conflict Armament Research cataloged more than 1,700 bullet cartridges by their country of origin and their date of manufacture. The report says most of the related arms appear to have been seized by ISIS from opposing forces, from national armies to foreign-backed rebel groups across Syria and Iraq. “The lesson learned here is that the defense and security forces that have been supplied ammunition by external nations really don’t have the capacity to maintain custody of that ammunition,” James Bevan, director of the European Union-funded Conflict Armament Research, told The New York Times. The UN-funded research reports indicated that most of the Islamic State's arms ultimately came from China, Russia and the U.S. Two of the biggest sources of the militants' weaponry, the report said, are supplies wrested from the Syrian army, which possesses a significant stock of Soviet and Russian-made arms that is still being replenished, and supplies captured in Iraq, many of which were made in America. The report notes that almost 20 percent of the cartridges cataloged could be traced to U.S. manufacturers. Additionally, the report points out that the Islamic State appears to use "significant quantities" of ammunition manufactured in Russia under the Wolf brand and distributed by the U.S. to allied states in the Middle East. Between them, China, Russia, the now defunct Soviet Union, the U.S. and Serbia provided more than 80 percent of the ammunition in the sample collected, according to a New York Times analysis of the report. Bevan told the Times that the Chinese arms are especially difficult to trace because Chinese arms sales are generally “not transparent in any way.” About three-quarters of the world’s weapons are provided by just five countries: the U.S., Russia, China, Germany and France. The face of conflict is constantly changing, but this list has remained the same for the past 50 years. The U.S. is the undisputed king of the arms trade. Responsible for 30% of weapon sales worldwide, it has a long-standing client base. It is the main arms provider for Central America, where arms imports since 2007 have increased by 68%, and exports 27% to the Middle East, mainly to Iraq and Afghanistan. Russia is not far behind. The country has faced severe criticism for providing 78% of Syria’s weapons imports between 2006 and 2011. Yet 65 percent of Russian sales go to Asia and Oceania, and India is its largest client, not to mention the biggest buyer worldwide after increasing its demand by 52 percent in the past five years. China comes after Russia, and in 2012 it even
surpassed the U.K. in arms sold. While also being the world’s second largest buyer, its exports rose by162 percent between 2007 and 2012, mostly directed to Asia, 74% and to Africa, 13%. Armed conflicts are estimated to cost Africa $18 billion a year, about the same it receives in international aid. Yet in Burundi you can buy a grenade for the price of a pint of beer. The continent’s overall imports have increased by 104 percent in the past five years, and by 350% in North Africa due to existing conflicts in Egypt and Libya and the fear of future ones in Algeria and Morocco. Late last year, Germany’s broadcaster Deutsche Welle, DW, investigated what turned out to be hundreds of trucks a day carrying billions of dollars in supplies, flowing across the Turkish border into Syria and directly into the hands of the so-called “Islamic State”, ISIS. The border crossing near the Turkish city of Oncupinar, approximately 100km west of the Syrian city of Kobani, is apparently only one of many such crossings where ISIS fighters, weapons, and materiel move directly under the watch and apparent assistance of NATO. TIME magazine in their recent article titled, “ISIS Fighters Kill 200 Civilians in Syrian Town,” reported that the attacks came after the group, ISIS, suffered a series of setbacks over the past two weeks, including the loss last week of the Syrian border town of Tal Abyad, one of the group’s main points for bringing in foreign fighters and supplies. Tal Abyad, a Turkish-Syrian border crossing east of Kobani, is now a second, confirmed point of entry into Syria used by ISIS to supply its ongoing campaign within the country. Reports of confirmed, extensive logistical networks passing through NATO and US-ally territory, into Syria, contradict the current prevailing narrative that ISIS is an “indigenous” terrorist organization, funded and self-sustaining within the territory it currently holds in both Syria and Iraq. The Western media has attempted to claim with little evidence that ISIS’ immense, global operations are somehow underwritten by “ransom payments” and “black market oil” it has seized in eastern Syria. The general public across the West, if they truly desire an end to ISIS and its atrocities, will demand what least the West can do, shutting the borders of Turkey and Jordan and ending the flow of supplies to ISIS. This will never happen, thanks to both elementary but effective “divide and conquer” rhetoric miring the Western public in endless circular debate, and the fact that the average Westerner’s understanding of modern warfare and military logistics is derived from Hollywood and television, not maps, history, and basic knowledge. Despite being mostly handled by states, the arms trade is a murky business. Nearly one million of the 7 to 8 million firearms produced every year are lost or
stolen. Corruption in the global defense industry is estimated to cost $20 billion a year and since 2000 has allowed for more than $2.2 billion worth of arms to be imported into countries under arms embargoes. This is why last April the international community decided to take action. After more than six years of negotiations, the United Nations adopted the Arms Trade Treaty, setting clear and safer rules for all global transfers of weapons and ammunitions. But the treaty has not been implemented yet. So far only eight of the 115 signatories have ratified it. According to Dr. Giles Giacca at the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict, Two of the world’s largest arms exporters, China and Russia, and the world’s largest arms importer, India, are not likely to sign or ratify the treaty in the years to come. It will be a very long process. Meanwhile every minute a person dies from armed conflict.