Islamic State getting weapons from East Europe in ‘rapid’ new supply chain – arms expert

Analysis of the armaments supply chain now employed by Islamic State, which although much of its equipment was originally abandoned by the Iraqi army, is now buying new weapons directly from factories in Bulgaria and Serbia via Saudi Arabia. Guns and ammunition are then transported from Saudi Arabia to Turkey, “despite signing an ‘end user’ agreement saying it will use the weapons itself and not sell these them to any other countries”, before being transported over the Turkey-Syria border to Islamic State consignees. “We have a supply chain which goes from an Eastern European manufacturer, to a second Eastern European country, to Saudi Arabia, to Turkey, to a Syrian opposition group and then to Islamic State in Falluja in Iraq, in less than two months. That’s almost direct. If you want to put something on a boat and float it, it’s going to take a month.”