Isis: UN Warns Terror Group Has Enough Weapons to Carry on Fighting for Two Years

Islamic State fighters parade on military vehicles along the streets of a northern Raqqa province in Syria. Reuters

A new report by United Nations Security Council has warned that the Islamic State [IS] has enough arms to continue fighting in Iraq and Syria for up to two years.

The group now hold a substantial arsenal of small arms, ammunition and vehicles to give them a limited defence against low-flying aircraft.

The report states that despite a US-led campaign to destroy IS heavy artillery and vehicles through airstrikes, the coalition "cannot mitigate the effect of the significant volume of light weapons" that the group possesses.

The weapons "are sufficient to allow [Isis] to continue fighting at current levels for six months to two years", the paper finds.

The terror group's arsenal includes T-55 and T-72 tanks; US-manufactured Humvees; machine guns; short-range anti-aircraft artillery and "extensive supplies of ammunition". Much of their weaponry has been stolen from the US-backed Iraqi military and the Syrian military.

The recommendation of the report is that the United Nations implement a new set of sanctions to disrupt IS' finances, with calls for countries surrounding their self-proclaimed "caliphate" to "promptly seize all oil tanker trucks and their loads" entering or leaving the region.

A US-led coalition has conducted a series of air strikes against the group in Syria, killing 865 people, including 50 civilians, since September, according to the Britain-based monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.