ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

Companies from 20 countries are involved in the supply chain of components that end up in the explosives used by the Islamic State. The terror group relies on commercially available components for most of its bombs, with some parts coming from as far away as the United States and Japan, according to a report released by a London-based arms research group . Conflict Armament Research (CAR) says most components —such as chemicals and detonators — come from companies in Turkey and Iraq, which may not know the parts are being bought by the extremists. Many components are also used for civilian purposes, such as mining, making them relatively easy to get. The European Union-mandated study showed that 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). IEDs are now being produced on a “quasi-industrial scale” by the militant group, which uses bot...