Conflict Armament Research

Investigations

CAR has worked in 27 conflict-affected countries.^[2] Teams embed with national security and defence forces to document weapons at the point of use, and track their sources back through the chain of supply. Investigators photograph all markings and distinguishing characteristics, GPS-record all recovery sites and use in-field interviews with local stakeholders to build a case for each item documented. CAR does not rely on photographs sourced from social media.^[3]

All verified data is uploaded to CAR's iTrace system.^[4] Data is used to map the global chain of supply of arms, from the place of manufacture, to the point of capture or recovery.

iTrace

iTrace is a project funded by the EU and the Government of Germany. The iTrace system maps weapons data collected by the organization's field investigative teams. The database is "the world's largest public repository of diverted conventional weapons."^[5] iTrace is designed to help national authorities to identify points and risks of diversion, and to generate map weapon flows.

Services

CAR provides technical, policy, and support services to governments, international, regional and non-governmental organizations. These services include: policy support for weapon marking, identification, and record-keeping; IED and UXO contamination mapping; guidance and training on arms management; and analytical input to international arms control processes such as the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) and the UN Programme of Action on Small Arms and Light Weapons (PoA).^[6]

Iraq and Syria

In December 2017, CAR published a report documenting more than 40,000 items recovered from Islamic State (IS) forces between 2014 and 2017.^[7] The group reported that the majority of arms and ammunition were originally made in China and Russia, with almost a third of recovered weapons having first been produced by EU member states that were former Warsaw Pact countries.^[8]

Some of these items had been re-exported by the US and Saudi Arabia to Syrian opposition groups before ending up in IS hands.^[9] CAR found that one Belgian-made anti-tank missile sold to the US Army made its way to IS forces in just 59 days.^[10]

The report also found that IS "has been able to manufacture their own weapons and IEDs on an industrial scale thanks to a robust chain of supply."^[11] Turkish territory was the main, but not only, source of chemical explosive precursors for IEDs made by IS.^[12]

CAR has also documented attempts by IS forces to develop weaponised drones, including a visit to a drone workshop in Ramadi, Iraq.^[13][14]

Yemen

CAR has provided information on how rebel groups in Yemen are getting weapons, including assault rifles and anti-tank guided weapons that were seized from dhows in February and March 2016 by Combined Maritime Forces, and that were "suspected to have originated in Iran and were destined for Somalia and Yemen."^[15][16]

In December 2017, CAR reported on a remote-controlled 'drone boat' that had been reportedly seized in Yemen's coastal waters, providing a breakdown of how the water-borne IED had been constructed.^[17]

Sudan and South Sudan

Reports from CAR show that despite active UN and EU arms embargoes, the Sudanese government has continued to import military and dual-use goods, some of which it has used in the conflict in South Kordofan and Blue Nile state.^[18]

Sudan has used foreign imports to build up its own domestic production capabilities. CAR says that since 2014 newly-manufactured Sudanese military materiel has been found in the hands of armed groups in South Sudan, Central African Republic, Cote d'Ivoire, Libya, Mali, and Niger.^[19]

In 2015 CAR reported that South Sudan's military has seized a stash of weapons that may have been supplied to a rebel group by Khartoum, which says it is not involved in the conflict.^[20][21]

The Sahel

Based on field investigations carried out in eight countries during 2015 and early 2016, CAR found evidence of widespread circulation of illicit arms between armed groups in West Africa. The group documented how weapons looted or leaked from Libyan stockpiles after the civil war in 2011 had fuelled armed actors in Central African Republic, Chad, Cote d'Ivoire, Mali, Niger, and Syria.^[22]

CAR also discovered a new set of weapons used in a series of attacks against hotels and security forces by Islamist armed groups in the Sahel that were "unlike any previously documented in the sub-region."^[23] These matched with weapons found in Iraq and Syria, and suggest, according to CAR, possible links in supply sources between groups active in Iraq and Syria and in West Africa.

Reports

• Weapons of the Islamic State (December 2017)

• Sudanese stockpiles and regional weapon diversion (May 2017)

• Investigating cross-border weapon transfers in the Sahel (November 2016)

• Tracing the supply of components used in Islamic State IEDs (February 2016)

• Non-state armed groups in the Central African Republic (January 2015)

• Rebel forces in northern Mali (April 2013)

• Distribution of Iranian ammunition in Africa (December 2012)

Dispatches

• New Sudanese weapons in Blue Nile state (April 2017)

• Standardisation and quality control in Islamic State’s military production (December 2016)

• Maritime interdictions of weapon supplies to Somalia and Yemen (November 2016)

• Weapons and ammunition airdropped to SPLA-iO forces in South Sudan (June 2015)

• Islamic State weapons in Kobane (April 2015)

• Islamic State ammunition in Iraq and Syria (October 2014)

• Islamic State weapons in Iraq and Syria (September 2014)

Guides

• Warsaw Pact-calibre ammunition quantity tables

• Russian MANPADs technology

• Warsaw Pact-calibre ammunition box marking

• Identifying marks on Kalashnikov-pattern weapons

Field Perspectives

• Anatomy of a ‘drone boat’ (December 2017)

• Islamic State’s multi-role IEDs (April 2017)

• Iranian technology transfers to Yemen (March 2017)

• Islamic State’s weaponised drones

• Inside Islamic State’s improvised weapon factories in Fallujah

• Turkish fertilisers used in Islamic State IEDs in Iraq