The American electronic brains of ISIS bombs: How Islamic fanatics use everyday items from the U.S. smuggled to their terror heartland to create their lethal IEDs
Microchips manufactured for the US market are used by terrorists to make improvised explosive devices
Microcontrollers from Microchip Technologies, of Glendale, Arizona, found in Iraq and Afghanistan
Firm has done nothing wrong and report by arms control group says action is needed to stop smuggling to ISIS
They also use everyday mobile phones to make their IEDs, with similar design to ones used to target Western troops
Trail of terror revealed by think-tank report which warns of apparent ease with which items get to Islamist heartland
Much of technology used by ISIS is ‘dual use’ and others has been sold to them through long chain of suppliers
Unwitting firms make and sell the components used for bombs intended for everyday household objects use
By ISABEL HUNTER AND JAKE WALLIS SIMONS
DailyMail.com
25 February 2016
A crucial component ISIS uses to control its roadside bombs is made in America, a new report reveals.
The ‘microcontrollers’ are manufactured by an innocent Arizona firm but their normal use is subverted by the terror group’s armourers and they are turned into deadly improvised explosive devices.
The hi-tech components are among hundred of items produced around the world which are sourced by ISIS and trafficked into their terror heartland in Iraq and Syria. These include hair bleach and even Nokia mobile phones.
Conflict Armament Research (CAR) spent 20 months uncovering the secrets of how ISIS makes its bombs by combing through ‘ingredients’ found after the group had been beaten back by Iraqi or Kurdish forces.
The report names dozens of companies as the unwitting sources for the deadly weapons – among them Microsoft, whose Nokia mobile phones are used to set off explosions.
Many of the companies involved helped CAR track what had happened to the items they manufactured or supplied to third parties, to help piece together the picture of how ISIS brings death to civilians and enemy forces in Iraq and Syria.
IEDs have become one of the key weapons of modern ‘asymmetric’ warfare, with terror groups using them to maim and kill both civilians and enemy forces.
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