The illegal arms trade is out of control – Zuhair al Jezairy

On March 25, three members of the Iraqi parliament raised an alarm on the spread of the trade in unlicensed weapons. Rockets and heavy weapons were used in clashes between tribes in the south and center of the country, in which thirty people have died and another eighty were injured since the beginning of this year.

The arms trade took a drastic surge after the defeat of the Islamic State (IS) group in December 2017. The militias that participated in the war against IS confiscated many weapons hidden in jihadist lairs and resold them on the market black in the south and west of the country. A market that is not black at all, nor gray. In the capital Baghdad and in the western and southern regions of Iraq, the sale of weapons takes place on the street, in the light of the sun. Entire arsenals of unauthorized weapons are in the hands of tribes and militias.

In an effort to curb the influence of armed groups, Prime Minister Mustafa al Kadhimi launched a campaign in Baghdad and Basra in September 2020 to restrict arms ownership to the state. But the initiative failed to curb the spread of weapons or to limit armed clashes between tribes. The trade in unauthorized arms and the traffickers themselves are protected by the militias as sources of economic income.

Some of the weapons are smuggled through five border crossings controlled by Iraqi armed groups along the 1,600-kilometer border with Iran. “There is a sort of collusion between officials, political parties, criminal gangs and corrupt businessmen,” Iraqi Finance Minister Ali Allawi told AFP, stressing that “this system as a whole contributes to the looting of the state”. Through relationships with influential militias, unauthorized weapons enter the country without any control.

(Translation by Francesco De Lellis)