ISIS ammunition has origins in United States, China: Reports

Baghdad: In its fight in Syria and Iraq, the dreaded terror group, Islamic State or ISIS, has been using ammunition from the United States among other countries, as per reports.

As per reports in New York Times, field data gathered by a private arms-tracking organisation suggested that weaponry sent to Syria and Iraq to help the governments there had passed to the militants. This had in turn helped the rise of ISIS and had added to their combative strenght.

One of the ammunition that the ISIS has used in the war has been the rifle cartridges from the US.

This essentially means, as per the report, that the security forces that have been given the ammunition don't have the wherewithal to maintain custody of them.

It is also said that the ISIS has been able to gather weapons from other anti-government groups in Syria that have joined its ranks. They may have also purchased weapons from Syrian rebels who receive them from foreign donors.

Other means of ISIS getting weapons may be battlefield captures and deals with corrupt members of the security forces in Syria and Iraq.

For example, after the terror group seized a Syrian air base near Hama last year they got hold of a big haul weapons and ammunition.

Moreover, investigations have said that more than eighty percent of the ammunition that was recovered and said to belong to the ISIS was manufactured in China, the former Soviet Union, the US, post-Soviet Russia or Serbia.

An analyst was quoted in the report as saying that the aged Soviet ammunition that were recovered appeared to match as those belonging to the storehouses of the Syrian military. These were received by them from the Kremlin.

Further, a majority of the cartridges recovered supposedly matched ammunition that America had supplied to Iraq's military and police units. These were said to be 5.56-millimeter cartridges manufactured from 2005 to 2007 at the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant in Missouri.

They are standard cartridge for American M-4 and M-16 rifles.

Other samples included 147 cartridges bearing WOLF stamp used by Sporting Supplies International. This is an US company that sells Russian-manufactured ammunition under its own brand.

Some cartridges also reportedly came from Iran with some of them that were manufactured in 2013.

To be noted is the fact that UN security council resolution 1737 in 2006 prohibited Iran from exporting arms.

The report also highlights the fact that China is a big supplier of military-grade ammunition around the world and thus, its ammunition are commonly found in wherever there are conflicts.

The Chinese weaponry may have been provided to Syrian forces, to Iraqi forces or any other country and then re-transferred to the strife-torn region.

The ISIS expanded during the civil war in Syria. It swept into Iraq in June this year, seizing large areas of the country's Sunni-dominated northern and western provinces.

One of the main reasons for its rise in Syria and Iraq is said to be internal conflict in those countries and weak governments there.