ISIS terror group releases images of store stocked with self-loading shotguns, daggers and telescopic scopes
ISIS has released menacing new images of one of its gun shops in its stronghold of Mosul, Iraq.
It is stocked with assault rifles, self-loading shotguns, daggers, telescopic scopes and bizarrely, ISIS-branded flags and t-shirts.
The terror group seized huge caches of United States-made weapons from retreating Iraqi troops in Mosul last year, Iraq’s prime minister has admitted.
There is no evidence to suggest the captured weapons are being stocked in Islamic State’s gun shops.
A respected weapons expert told MailOnline the shop is essentially ‘an army and navy store’ for civilians and the images only serve as propaganda if they are ‘trying to impress people with their fine selection of crappy t-shirts’.
Outside the store, mannequins have been dressed to show off a small selection of the extremists’ total wares.
And at least one t-shirt bearing the notorious black jihadi badge can be seen hanging on the Mosul store-front.
The items being sold inside are more worrying. Six shotguns and a Heckler and Koch G3 battle rifle sit on a wall-mounted gun-rack while dozens of belts holding shotgun cartridges hang nearby.
A store assistant is seen tending to the hanging t-shirts in the store which also sells caps, rucksacks, shoes and black banners which bear the notorious badge used by jihadi groups like ISIS.
Mosul was seized by ISIS militants in June 2014. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has since said that ‘a lot of weapons’ were lost when the country’s second largest city fell.
The spoils of war – which includes over 2,300 American Humvees in Mosul alone – have since been used by ISIS to gain more ground in Iraq and Syria.
The number of heavy and light weapons abandoned by Iraq’s army is unknown but the United States has sold thousands of armoured vehicles, tanks and other military hardware to Iraq over the past decade.
The gun store in Mosul may look frightening but the story would not be used by a hardened ISIS militant, a weapons expert told MailOnline anonymously.
He said: ‘This has more the look of a civilian type gun shop that is rather poorly stocked… No soldier would be happy with the selection on display there.’
The number of shotguns on display could suggest the store is not be frequented by ISIS fighters who tend to use automatic weapons in brutal urban warfare.
The expert added: ‘As always with firearms, there’s no simple answer… Shotguns are very useful in close quarter combat situations, but they wouldn’t be of this type, they would have shorter barrels.
‘The long barrel lengths are what would be used for game shooting of clay pigeon shooting.’
Earlier this month, ISIS released more propaganda images showing off what they claimed were their well-stocked shopping malls in Mosul.
Shelves were filled with western products like Head & Shoulders shampoo and Mars bars in what appeared to be the group’s latest propaganda stunt to draw in new foreign recruits.
Elaborately decorated cakes, colour-coordinated piles of fruit and an assortment of different shampoos all appear to be on sale in the territories held by ISIS, according to The Sunday People.
The photos appear to highlight ISIS’s attempts at showing how life remains ‘normal’ in ISIS territory despite local activists and residents talking of serious shortages.
A United States-led coalition is still carrying out airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq, the US Department of Defence said on Saturday.
It carried out 22 bombings on Friday – seven of which were launched near the Iraqi city of Fallujah. he strikes a bomb-making facility, a weapons repair facility and five ISIS bridges.
The coalition also carried out five airstrikes near Ramadi, which struck three ISIS tactical units and destroyed three of the group’s fighting positions.
Other airstrikes were launched in Mosul, Al Huwayjah, Baiji, Habbaniyah, Makhmur, Sinjar, and Tal-Afar.
Source: Daily Mail
