The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20141024040611/http://cjchivers.com/

Arms-Trade Data Sharing: An Example.

Andrew Roth of the NYT, and a field team from HRW, reported overnight on the widespread use of cluster munitions in eastern Ukraine. It is not a pretty story, though the details and field work in the face of the hurdles is commendable and a welcome step toward accountability.

DONETSK, Ukraine — The Ukrainian Army appears to have fired cluster munitions on several occasions into the heart of Donetsk, unleashing a weapon banned in much of the world into a rebel-held city with a peacetime population of more than one million, according to physical evidence and interviews with witnesses and victims.

Sites where rockets fell in the city on Oct. 2 and Oct. 5 showed clear signs that cluster munitionshad been fired from the direction of army-held territory, where misfired artillery rockets still containing cluster bomblets were found by villagers in farm fields.

The two attacks wounded at least six people and killed a Swiss employee of the International Red Cross based in Donetsk.

I can’t speak for HRW, but Andrew’s work was aided by Collective Awareness to UXO (homepage and Twitter feed), which gathers and shares ordnance-related information for people at risk.  Richard Stevens, CAT-UXO’s principal. helped Andrew with his ordnance identification chores and shared specs related to the cluster munitions found and the dispensers that distributed him.

For this Richard deserves thanks, and a bow.  Reliable ordnance-related information, once scarce in the public domain, has become available for people in the field in part because EOD specialists like Richard have taken the trouble to try to help. This is a fine example of the value of information sharing, upon which lives can depend and governments and other combatants can be brought to account.

ABOUT THE IMAGES

Spec sheet and image of 9N210 submunition frag belt, showing the chopped steel rods that the submunitions blast outward at detonation. Both provided by Richard. The lower image, of the frag belt segments, is a reference image made by George Zahaczewsky near Ruisi, Georgia in August 2008.

High-res The Secret Victims of Iraq’s Chemical Arms Aged shells and warheads. Officers who ordered wounded troops to silence. Substandard medical care (and even denial of treatment) to Iraqis and Americans who were exposed. American-designed mustard shells in the corroded vestiges of Saddam Hussein’s old chemical stockpile.  Honors denied to troops who served in some of the most dangerous jobs of the most recent Iraq War. On The New York Times: An untold chronicle of the United States’ long and bitter involvement in Iraq. From 2004 to 2011, American and American-trained Iraqi troops repeatedly encountered, and on at least six occasions were wounded by, chemical weapons remaining from years earlier in Saddam Hussein’s rule. In all, American troops secretly reported finding roughly 5,000 chemical warheads, shells or aviation bombs, according to interviews with dozens of participants, Iraqi and American officials, and heavily redacted intelligence documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. An investigation many months in works, and at last in print. Heres why:   Reporting was contributed by John Ismay, Duraid Ahmed, Omar al-Jawoshy, Mac William Bishop and Eric Schmitt. Alain Delaquérière contributed research. Produced by Craig Allen, David Furst, Alicia DeSantis, Sergio Peçanha, Shreeya Sinha, Frank O’Connell, Derek Watkins and Josh Williams. With editing by Michael Slackman and Matt Purdy, and photographs by Tyler Hicks ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPH Leaking 155-mm mustard agent shells among those that wounded five American soldiers near Taji, Iraq in 2008

The Secret Victims of Iraq’s Chemical Arms

Aged shells and warheads. Officers who ordered wounded troops to silence. Substandard medical care (and even denial of treatment) to Iraqis and Americans who were exposed. American-designed mustard shells in the corroded vestiges of Saddam Hussein’s old chemical stockpile.  Honors denied to troops who served in some of the most dangerous jobs of the most recent Iraq War.

On The New York Times: An untold chronicle of the United States’ long and bitter involvement in Iraq.

From 2004 to 2011, American and American-trained Iraqi troops repeatedly encountered, and on at least six occasions were wounded by, chemical weapons remaining from years earlier in Saddam Hussein’s rule.

In all, American troops secretly reported finding roughly 5,000 chemical warheads, shells or aviation bombs, according to interviews with dozens of participants, Iraqi and American officials, and heavily redacted intelligence documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

An investigation many months in works, and at last in print. Heres why:  

Reporting was contributed by John Ismay, Duraid Ahmed, Omar al-Jawoshy, Mac William Bishop and Eric Schmitt. Alain Delaquérière contributed research.

Produced by Craig Allen, David Furst, Alicia DeSantis, Sergio Peçanha, Shreeya Sinha, Frank O’Connell, Derek Watkins and Josh Williams.

With editing by Michael Slackman and Matt Purdy, and photographs by Tyler Hicks

ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPH

Leaking 155-mm mustard agent shells among those that wounded five American soldiers near Taji, Iraq in 2008

High-res American Ammunition in Islamic State’s Hands. Documented in detail with a fine bit of field research by Conflict Armament Research, a private organization that tracks weapons and the arms trade. Details here. Brief excerpt below. In its campaign across northern Syria and Iraq, the jihadist group Islamic State has been using ammunition from the United States and other countries that have been supporting the regional security forces fighting the group, according to new field data gathered by a private arms-tracking organization. The data, part of a larger sample of captured arms and cartridges in Syria and Iraq, carries an implicit warning for policy makers and advocates of intervention. It suggests that ammunition transferred into Syria and Iraq to help stabilize governments has instead passed from the governments to the jihadists, helping to fuel the Islamic State’s rise and persistent combat power. Rifle cartridges from the United States, the sample shows, have played a significant role. “The lesson learned here is that the defense and security forces that have been supplied ammunition by external nations really don’t have the capacity to maintain custody of that ammunition,” said James Bevan, director of Conflict Armament Research, the organization that is gathering and analyzing weapons used by the Islamic State.  ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPH An unfired 5.56-mm cartridge from Lake City Army Ammunition Plant, dated 2006, seized from Islamic State by Kurdish fighters in Iraq in July. Courtesy of Conflict Armament Research.  

American Ammunition in Islamic State’s Hands.

Documented in detail with a fine bit of field research by Conflict Armament Research, a private organization that tracks weapons and the arms trade.

Details here. Brief excerpt below.

In its campaign across northern Syria and Iraq, the jihadist group Islamic State has been using ammunition from the United States and other countries that have been supporting the regional security forces fighting the group, according to new field data gathered by a private arms-tracking organization.

The data, part of a larger sample of captured arms and cartridges in Syria and Iraq, carries an implicit warning for policy makers and advocates of intervention.

It suggests that ammunition transferred into Syria and Iraq to help stabilize governments has instead passed from the governments to the jihadists, helping to fuel the Islamic State’s rise and persistent combat power. Rifle cartridges from the United States, the sample shows, have played a significant role.

“The lesson learned here is that the defense and security forces that have been supplied ammunition by external nations really don’t have the capacity to maintain custody of that ammunition,” said James Bevan, director of Conflict Armament Research, the organization that is gathering and analyzing weapons used by the Islamic State. 

ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPH

An unfired 5.56-mm cartridge from Lake City Army Ammunition Plant, dated 2006, seized from Islamic State by Kurdish fighters in Iraq in July. Courtesy of Conflict Armament Research.

 

High-res DIY Arms go next-level. This club-and-bolt arrangement is not from the Maidan, though it would have fit in neatly there. Enough misdirection; it was not even built for men to use against men. It’s fish baton, a species of tool my father calls a Priest, and it was made and sent by a reader to the editorial offices of Field & Stream. It hangs in the cubicle of @cmkearns, who allowed me (as owners of unusual weapons and tools often do) to bag it for the archive. Partial Disclosure: We keep a Priest on our boat. Full disclosure: It is less menacing than this guy, and we resort to it only rarely. Nagging Afterthought: One puzzles over the fish its maker must have expected to catch. #knowyourfood #knowyourtools #useyourhands

DIY Arms go next-level. This club-and-bolt arrangement is not from the Maidan, though it would have fit in neatly there. Enough misdirection; it was not even built for men to use against men. It’s fish baton, a species of tool my father calls a Priest, and it was made and sent by a reader to the editorial offices of Field & Stream. It hangs in the cubicle of @cmkearns, who allowed me (as owners of unusual weapons and tools often do) to bag it for the archive. Partial Disclosure: We keep a Priest on our boat. Full disclosure: It is less menacing than this guy, and we resort to it only rarely. Nagging Afterthought: One puzzles over the fish its maker must have expected to catch. #knowyourfood #knowyourtools #useyourhands

High-res From the Workbench:  Another Workshop-Grade Anti-Material Sniper Rifle. This one, under development, is said to be chambered in 14.5mm, like a KPV heavy machine-gun  or a PTRD-41, another descendant of the Soviet arms-production heyday. (The weapon is built around a Soviet cartridge designed in the 1930s, and still produced and widely available on battlefields today.) The rifle looks unwieldy, naturally, though not as unwieldy as this. How well it works can’t be told from a single photograph, of the very limited Facebook post, by a Kurd who claims allegiance to The Islamic Front. It appears in any event to have been incomplete when this photo was made. It is a reminder that the longer the the wars in the Middle East continue, the more arms shops like this one, and efforts like this or this, will be incubated. Rebels call this kind of project the natural outcome of necessity.  The risks associated with this kind of necessity will likely reverberate for many years. ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPH From the FB page of Dr. Abdul Karim Kurdi.

From the Workbench:  Another Workshop-Grade Anti-Material Sniper Rifle.

This one, under development, is said to be chambered in 14.5mm, like a KPV heavy machine-gun  or a PTRD-41, another descendant of the Soviet arms-production heyday. (The weapon is built around a Soviet cartridge designed in the 1930s, and still produced and widely available on battlefields today.)

The rifle looks unwieldy, naturally, though not as unwieldy as this.

How well it works can’t be told from a single photograph, of the very limited Facebook post, by a Kurd who claims allegiance to The Islamic Front. It appears in any event to have been incomplete when this photo was made.

It is a reminder that the longer the the wars in the Middle East continue, the more arms shops like this one, and efforts like this or this, will be incubated. Rebels call this kind of project the natural outcome of necessity.  The risks associated with this kind of necessity will likely reverberate for many years.

ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPH

From the FB page of Dr. Abdul Karim Kurdi.