Indian firms listed in IS supply chain

According to Conflict Armament Research (CAR), which undertook the 20-month study mandated by The European Union, 51 companies from countries including Turkey, Brazil, and the United States produced, sold or received the more than 700 components used by Islamic State to build improvised explosive devices (IEDs). 

Seven Indian companies manufactured most of the detonators, detonating cord, and safety fuses documented by CAR. Those were all legally exported under government-issued licences from India to entities in Lebanon and Turkey, CAR found. India is second in the supply chain, behind Turkey’s 13 firms.

IEDs are now being produced on a “quasi-industrial scale” by the militant group. “These findings support growing international awareness that IS forces in Iraq and Syria are very much self-sustaining, acquiring weapons and strategic goods, locally and with ease,” said James Bevan, CAR’s executive director. The components were recovered during major battles around the Iraqi towns of Kirkuk and Mosul.