Many of the advanced light weapons systems the U.S. military covertly supplied to Syrian rebels were swiftly diverted to Islamic State fighters, according to a new study released Thursday.
The report from Conflict Armament Research (CAR), an organization that tracks arms flows to war zones, analyzed the origin of more than 40,000 weapons captured from ISIS between 2014 and 2017. Many of the arms purchased by the U.S., including anti-tank missiles, ended up in the hands of ISIS fighters within two weeks of their transfer to Syrian opposition forces, the report found.
The weapons continue to threaten soldiers deployed with the U.S.-led coalition to defeat ISIS, which is still fighting the terror group in Syria, according to the study.
“Supplies of materiel into the Syrian conflict from foreign parties — notably the United States and Saudi Arabia — have indirectly allowed IS
to obtain substantial quantities of anti-armour ammunition,” the report stated. “These weapons include [Anti-Tank Guided Weapons] and several varieties of rocket with tandem warheads, which are designed to defeat modern reactive armour. These systems continue to pose
a significant threat to the coalition of troops arrayed against IS forces.”
The CAR report sheds more light on the unintended consequences of the U.S. policy of arming rebel groups with ties to Sunni Islamic militants who were also fighting against the Syrian regime. Initiated by former President Barack Obama’s administration, the covert arms shipments were intended to boost the moderate Free Syrian Army without directly involving U.S. forces in the campaign to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Many of the weapons were diverted to Islamic extremists, including ISIS, after the moderate groups were defeated on the battlefield. More controversially, reports surfaced of the Free Syrian Army’s providing support to assorted Islamic militant groups in Syria, including al-Qaida affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra.
Most of the weapons provided to anti-Assad rebels in Syria were purchased by the U.S. or Saudi Arabia from arms manufacturers in Eastern Europe, according to the CAR report. The weapons transfer appears to have violated non-retransfer agreements between the manufacturers and the U.S. military, that said it would not give the arms to unauthorized users.
“These findings are a stark reminder of the contradictions inherent in supplying weapons into armed conflicts in which multiple competing
and overlapping non-state armed groups operate,” the CAR report stated. “Under such circumstances, it is difficult to exert effective control over which groups ultimately gain custody of the weapons.”
The covert weapons shipments to Syrian rebels, which President Donald Trump’s administration cancelled earlier this year, are separate from publicly acknowledged U.S. support of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). An alliance of Kurds and Arabs, the SDF has been instrumental in expelling ISIS from its strongholds in Syria.
The CAR report acknowledged that ISIS acquired a large amount of its weaponry when it overran Iraqi military units in 2014 and captured arms and equipment abandoned in the fighting. Furthermore, arms manufactured in Russia and China accounted for more than half of the weapons and ammunition held by ISIS, according to the report.
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