Decades of reckless arms trading and the poorly regulated flow of weapons into Iraq have contributed to the Islamic State group's accumulation of a "vast and varied" arsenal which is being used to commit war crimes on a massive scale in Iraq and Syria, an international rights group said Tuesday.
IS swept across Iraq in the summer of 2014, capturing the second largest city, Mosul, and taking weapons left behind by fleeing Iraqi security forces, including U.S.-supplied arms and military vehicles.
"The vast and varied weaponry being used by the armed group calling itself Islamic State is a textbook case of how reckless arms trading fuels atrocities on a massive scale," said Amnesty researcher Patrick Wilcken .
"Poor regulation and lack of oversight of the immense arms flows into Iraq going back decades have given IS and other armed groups a bonanza of unprecedented access to firepower," he said.
