New Delhi: After a single day of fighting on June 29, ISIS fighters showed off US manufactured M-16 rifles, crates of ammunition, mortars, a Toyota truck-all captured from American forces. Now it seems instances like those are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
A meticulous one-year long study by Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) of contracts on guns and ammunition issued by the US Department of Defence (DoD) between September 11, 2001 and September 10, 2015 has come with startling conclusions on US arms falling into wrong hands. The total value of the contracts added up to worth over $40 billion during the 14 year long period.
AOAV is a London-based NGO that carries out research and advocacy in order to reduce the incidence and impact of global armed violence.
AOAV recently released a report saying the Pentagon has “somehow misplaced hundreds of thousands” out of the 14,52,910 guns that were shipped to Iraq and Afghanistan since the start of the ‘war on terror’.” Among them is a staggering finding that Pentagon doesn’t have any idea about where 14,33,308 weapons, including 2,85,981 AK47s, — ranging from assault rifles, pistols, machine guns, shotguns, sniper rifles as well as many unspecified rifles and non-standard small arms, ended up after being sent to war-ravaged Iraq and Afghanistan in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks when war on terror was declared. This huge quantity of arsenal — 949,582 for Iraq, 503,328 for Afghanistan — is enough to equip every single Indian soldier of its 13 lakh strong Army with a weapon. The findings are reflective of a huge discrepancy in gun numbers as well as of the Pentagon keeping poor records.
