The key issue is not that ISIS is using U.S. made weapons. Given ISIS geographic conquests it would be expected, vis-à-vis Iraq, they were able to capture weapons and armament. No, it’s the *type* of weapons, specifically boxed M16’s, which identifies the covert shipments to Syria we outlined within the Benghazi Brief.
In 2012 those small arms were shipped to Syria as a result of President Obama’s authorization. Saudi Arabia and Qatar were providing the financing, Turkey provided an initial storage base near Adana where the nerve center for supporting what became ISIS was set up. The UN peacekeeper Kofi Annan was pulled out of Syria, and U.S. weapons were poured in.
On September 5th 2012 a Libyan flag ship called Al Entisar docked in the Turkish port of Iskenderun, it carried small arms and rockets from the U.S. originally destined for the Free Syrian Army. However, by that point the FSA had collapsed and most of the leaders defected to join what is now ISIS.
(Via Raw Story) Islamic State fighters appear to be using captured US military issue arms and weapons supplied to moderate rebels in Syria by Saudi Arabia, according to a report published on Monday.
The study by the London-based small-arms research organisation Conflict Armament Research documented weapons seized by Kurdish forces from militants in Iraq and Syria over a 10-day period in July.
The report said the jihadists disposed of “significant quantities” of US-made small arms including M16 assault rifles and included photos showing the markings “Property of US Govt”.
It also found that anti-tank rockets used by IS in Syria were “identical to M79 rockets transferred by Saudi Arabia to forces operating under the Free Syrian Army umbrella in 2013″.
The rockets were made in the then Yugoslavia in the 1980s.
Islamic State is believed to have seized large quantities of weapons from Syrian military installations it has captured, as well as arms supplied by the United States to the Iraqi army after it swept through northern Iraq in recent weeks. (read more)
