IPIS Insights: Pentagon Accidentally Arms Al Qaeda Affiliate

February 20, 2014

A confidential report to the UN Security Council last week revealed that some of the weapons and ammunition supplied to the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) forces appears to have been diverted to the Al Qaeda affiliate known as Al Shabaab. It seems clear that at least some of the weapons and ammunition so diverted were paid for by the US Government directly – through cash deliveries –


Ambushed in Bangkok? The U.N. Panel on North Korea and the case of the IL-76 “4L-AWA”

November 19, 2013

This new IPIS/Transarms report explains why the conclusion of the latest United Nations report on North Korea sanctions about an arms flight grounded in Thailand is not supported by facts, but based on a misalliance of wrong and misleading information gleaned both about the cargo aircraft. its flight and the entities involved, together with erroneous interpretations of standard aviation practices


“Véhicules civils militarisables” and the EU arms embargo on Sudan

September 13, 2011

The ongoing humanitarian crisis in Darfur has been overlooked recently because the international community has been focusing on the popular revolts in North Africa in the first half of the year and South Sudan’s peaceful referendum on secession from northern Sudan, and the subsequent violence in and over the contested Abyei region, In December 2010, however, fighting in Darfur resumed and has cont


The Karamoja Cluster of eastern Africa: Arms transfers and their repercussions on communal security perceptions

December 31, 2010

Nomadic peoples are often, if not universally, perceived as a problem by the governments of the nation states who have responsibility for them; this is particularly so in the case of the three nations with which this report is concerned, viz: Kenya, Uganda and (southern) Sudan. The pastoralist societies within the Karamajong cluster have been unable to adequately defend themselves politically agai


Mapping the Labyrinth: more on the strange weapons flight of 4L-AWA

October 1, 2010

This research report is the third in a series about the case of a IL-76 aircraft used for an apparently clandestine arms flight in provenance from Pyongyang – in contravention of the United Nations arms embargo on North Korea -, which was impounded by Thai authorities during a technical stop in Bangkok December 12, 2009. Two previous research reports on this unusual case were published by IPIS and


From deceit to discovery: The strange flight of 4L-AWA (update)

February 9, 2010

A joint IPIS/Transarms publication. Download in pdf or open with issuu reader. http://issuu.com/ipisresearch/docs/from_deceit_to_discovery-_the_stran_36e12e3d87b0d9


Zimbabwe – Arms and Corruption: fuelling human rigths abuse

July 17, 2009

The following examples of irresponsible arms transfers involving Zimbabwe and other actors should be of great concern to the international community. The examples cited below are intended to illustrate further the need to ensure that the proposed international Arms Trade Treaty is as comprehensive as possible, and fully reflects the obligations of States to prevent arms transfers which pose a subs


Illicit brokering of SALW in Europe: lacunae in Eastern European arms control and verification regimes

January 6, 2009

Download in pdf or open with issuu reader. http://issuu.com/ipisresearch/docs/danssaert_bjt-4


Recent arms deliveries from the successor States of the former Yugoslavia

March 18, 2007

This report presents the findings of the group of international experts commissioned by IPIS vzw to examine the current controls on weapons exports from the countries of former Yugoslavia, especially the Republic of Bosnia-Herzogovina and the Republic of Serbia. Download in pdf  or open with issuu reader. http://issuu.com/ipisresearch/docs/20070319_recent_arms_deliveries_fro


Greed and guns. Uganda’s Role in the Rape of the Congo

July 22, 2006

This report deals specifically with the recent Ugandan involvement in the military, political and economic affairs of its giant western neighbour, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which has contributed to a pattern of serious human rights abuses of the Congolese people. To corroborate evidence and gather additional information on Uganda’s involvement in the Congolese conflict the authors of t