The US Treasury has recently opened an inquiry about the Islamic
State’s use of large numbers of brand-new Toyota trucks. The issue has
arisen in the wake of growing global suspicion that the US itself has
played a key role in arming and funding the terrorist army across Syria
and Iraq.
In the ABC’s
article U.S.
counter-terror officials have asked Toyota to help them determine how
ISIS has managed to acquire the large number of Toyota pick-up trucks
and SUVs that can be seen in the various propaganda videos of this
terrorist organisation. Toyota, however, says it does not know how ISIS
obtained the vehicles and it has a “strict policy to not sell vehicles
to potential purchasers who may use or modify them for paramilitary or
terrorist activities.”
“This is a question we’ve been asking our neighbors. How
could these brand new trucks… these four wheel drives, hundreds of them –
where are they coming from?” said Lukman Faily, the Iraqi Ambassador to
the United States, for the ABC News.
It appears the US Treasury is asking the wrong people. Instead of
Toyota, the
US Treasury should have asked questions at the US State
Department. Because last year it was reported that the
US State
Department has been sending in fleets of Toyota-brand trucks into Syria
to the “Free Syrian Army.”
Public Radio International reported in a 2014
article that:
“Recently, when the US State Department resumed sending non-lethal aid
to Syrian rebels, the delivery list included 43 Toyota trucks.”
Also, The British Independent’s 2013 article titled, Revealed: What the West has given Syria’s rebels, reported that: So
far the UK has sent around £8m of “non-lethal” aid, according to
official papers seen by The Independent, comprising five 4×4 vehicles
with ballistic protection; 20 sets of body armour; four trucks (three 25
tonne, one 20 tonne); six 4×4 SUVs; five non-armoured pick-ups; one
recovery vehicle; four fork-lifts; three advanced “resilience kits” for
region hubs, designed to rescue people in emergencies; 130 solar powered
batteries; around 400 radios; water purification and rubbish collection
kits; laptops; VSATs (small satellite systems for data communications)
and printers.
The mystery
of how hundreds of identical, brand-new ISIS-owned Toyota trucks have made it into Syria
is solved.
Not only has the US and British government admitted this,
but their military forces and intelligence agencies are at the borders
of Turkey, Jordan, and even Iraq where these fleets of trucks must have
surely passed on their way to Syria.
What mystery?
Of course, much of this is not something new. So the question is –
why is the US Treasury just now carrying on with this inquiry? Perhaps
those in Washington believe that if the US government is the one asking
question of how ISIS has managed to create such an impressive mechanized
army in the middle of the Syrian desert, no one will suspect they had a
role in it.
Of course, the trucks didn’t materialize in Syria out of thin air.
They were brought in Syria in great numbers, with the knowledge and/or
direct complicity of the US and its regional allies. Asking Toyota where
the US State Department’s own trucks came from is another indication of
just how lost US foreign policy has become.
Source:
http://southfront.org/the-mystery-of-islamic-states-toyota-army-has-been-solved/
