Report: Humvees, Helicopters Among ISIS's Growing Cache of Stolen Weapons

Report: Humvees, Helicopters Among ISIS's Growing Cache of Stolen Weapons
Frances Martel

The terrorist jihadist group Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), now rebranded as the Islamic State, has previously paraded stolen American-made vehicles and used weapons from Saddam Hussein’s old arsenal to fight the Iraqi military. Reports surface now that ISIS may be better stocked than previously believed.

The Assyrian International News Agency (AINA) reports that ISIS’s inventory of Iraqi military weapons continues to grow as the group expands its reach, and while most of the military equipment its members appear to have stolen and are using are Humvees, “antiaircraft launchers and mortars have also been spotted.” An Iraqi Parliament member confirmed to the news agency that a number of powerful mortars have also been stolen from the city of Mosul, now under ISIS command.

Given the geography of what ISIS claims to be its Islamic Caliphate, experts believe other, more sophisticated military weapons are in the group’s possession. “You lost approximately three divisions worth of equipment and probably at least three depots in that area,” Anthony Cordesman, a security analyst at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, told AINA. “What they almost certainly do have now is enough ammunition to support a major campaign and enough small arms and vehicles to move quickly.”

He suggested that helicopters and tanks may be in the possession of ISIS but are unlikely to be used against Iraqi forces. Most members of ISIS have arrived in Iraq and Syria with little, if any, military training, and few are likely to know how to properly use a military helicopter.

It is difficult to gauge the current state of ISIS’s arsenal, but an extensive report by The Daily Sabah‘s Mehmet Kemal Firik estimates ISIS currently has at least 30 Russian-made tanks, one or two American-made M1 Abrams tanks, more than 200 American-made jeeps and Humvees, and, potentially, some helicopters, though the fact that no ISIS attacks have used air vehicles makes it difficult to confirm whether the terrorist group is in possession of them at all.

As for grenades, guns, bullets, and other war essentials, ISIS has not been shy in distributing propaganda online that makes them appear fully stocked. In the video below, a group of ISIS jihadists displays weapons allegedly stolen from other terror groups, such as the Al-Nusra front, and Syrian rebel groups fighting Bashar al-Assad:

On Twitter, new images have also surfaced of ISIS flaunting Humvees stolen from the Iraqi army:

The displays are not unusual for ISIS, which last week rallied around an alleged SCUD missile as part of a larger parade of loot. While the missile is widely believed to be inoperable – an issue similar to the seizure of helicopters and other complex military equipment – it still holds symbolic and propaganda value for the jihadi group. Physically useful to the cause, however, are the same Humvees used in a separate parade in Mosul, as well as other assorted weapons reportedly used to destroy Shi’ite holy sites throughout Iraq.

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