ISIS show off TANKS and devastating hi-tech weapons looted from Iraqi army and bought from West
The militants showed off their military power as part of their slick PR campaign – but rarely use their armored vehicles because they are an easy target.
IMAGE VIA TWITTER: Armoured: ISIS released pictures of their devastating – but rarely used – weaponry
As Written By Sam Webb For The Mirror UK:
SIS propagandists have released pictures of the sophisticated and devastating weapons it wields as part of its campaign of terror across the Middle East – including heavy TANKS.
The militants showed off their military power as part of their slick PR campaign – but fail to mention they rarely use their armoured vehicles because they are an easy target for the warplanes of Russia, America, Britain and France.
They were featured on Terrormonitor’s Twitter feed and were reportedly taken during fighting at Deir Ezzor military airport.
Britain, France, Russia and the United States provided most of the weapons being used by ISIS to carry out appalling war crimes, a new report claims.
As the UK joins its allies in carrying out airstrikes in Syria, the Government has come in for renewed accusations of having sown the seeds of conflict itself.
A new study by Amnesty International claims much of the weaponry used by Islamic State (IS) fighters was supplied by the same Western powers now trying to bomb it out of existence.
Read more: Pig’s heads left at Muslim prayer sites in Islamophobic attacks
Huge supplies of guns, rifles, mortars and missiles have been flowing into Iraq for years as the state struggled to retain control after British and American forces withdrew.
Oliver Sprague, Amnesty UK’s Arms Programme Director, said: “Decades of free-flowing arms into Iraq meant that when IS took control of these areas, they were like children in a sweetshop.
“The fact that countries including the UK have ended up inadvertently arming IS, should give us pause over current weapons deals.
“The UK was one of the key supporters of a global Arms Trade Treaty, intended to prevent the proliferation of arms and their use in horrific abuses like IS are committing.”
“Risks need to be far more carefully calculated, and we shouldn’t wait for this worst-case-scenario to happen before acting to prevent sales of arms which could fuel atrocities.”
Although Soviet Kalshnikovs are the most commonly used, the oldest piece of kit in the IS arsenal is believed to be a British World War One rifle.
Amnesty says IS fighters acquired a windfall of internationally manufactured arms after taking control of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, in June, 2014.
They included US-manufactured weapons and military vehicles which they then used to take control of other parts of the country.
Meanwhile, a suicide bomber killed at least six people outside a Shi’ite mosque in the Iraqi capital on Wednesday, according to police and medical sources, in an attack claimed by Islamic State.
Seven others were wounded in the attack, which took place in the mainly Shi’ite Ubaidi neighbourhood of eastern Baghdad and targeted worshippers leaving the mosque, police said.
“The suicide attacker was trying to enter the mosque before a guard stopped him, but he blew himself up,” said one policeman near the scene of the attack.
