"An arsenal churned from crude workshops"

"An arsenal churned from crude workshops"

Notes after the improvised weapons
of the "Islamic state" and the Syrian "rebels" 

fighting against the Assad regime in Syria

A factory workshop, originally manufactured steel and iron,
end repurposed as a weapons factory, making improvised
mortar shells and tubes for the "free Syrian army" in Aleppo
source: Reuters/Hamid Khatib

"free Syrian forces with their missiles
created in Aleppo. According to them, they
get explosives from government shells which
failed to explode.
Source: Reuters/Youssef Boudlal

It is from their workshops controlled by the "Islamic State" or anti-Assad groups like the "Free Syrian Army"/or the Islamist insurgents where their homemade weapons been developed. 

All coming from scrap metal or discarded old weapons refashioned into "something new", these weapons may seemed not accurate but still dangerous especially in those times of battle.

To some it is unsual, especially in seeing various weapons being created, crudely, from these workshops. Despite its crudity, these workshops routinely manufacture various sorts of weapons, bombs, all meant to shook fear in pursuing their actions. That be it a rocket launcher or a mortar fashioned from a pipe and on some cases, remnants of an existing weapon, these firearms for them are meant "continuing their resistance" regardless of its crudity which includes having lack the correct fuses, and oftentimes failed to detonate. 

But for yours truly, all after reading articles related to these weapons churned from these workshops with lathes and crude machinery, would say that these weapons are rather out of "compulsion" especially after failure to acquire weapons from the black market, and that the once machine shops used to fashion tools or repair stuff are turned into an armory of sorts, churning weapons two and fro to provoke their foe or worse, incite terror to those aren't meant to be part of the conflict.

But come to think of this, groups like the "Islamic state" afforded to create their weapons in an article from Wired, it stated that:

"Many of ISIS’ leaders were veterans of that insurgency, but as they began ramping up their war against the Iraqi government in 2014, they knew they needed more than IEDs and AK-47s to seize territory and create their independent Islamic State. A conventional war required conventional arms—mortars, rockets, grenades—which, as an international pariah, ISIS could not buy in sufficient quantities. Some they looted from the Iraqi or Syrian governments, but when those ran out they did something that no terrorist group has ever done before and that they continue to do today: design their own munitions and mass-produce them using advanced manufacturing techniques. Iraq’s oil fields provided the industrial base—tool-and-die sets, high-end saws, injection-­molding machines—and skilled workers who knew how to quickly fashion intricate parts to spec. Raw materials came from cannibalizing steel pipe and melting down scrap. ISIS engineers forged new fuzes, new rockets and launchers, and new bomblets to be dropped by drones, all assembled using instruction plans drawn up by ISIS officials."

A series of shoulder-fired, recoilless rocket launchers made
by the "Islamic state", shown with a variety of repurposed
projectiles. Weapons engineers from the "Islamic state" took
Soviet-era munitions and made western-style launchers for
them, even affixing written instructions for them.
Source: Damien Spleeters/Conflict Armament Research 

Yet that their level of sophistication grew from the insurgencies fighting against the American Occupation of Iraq from 2003 to 2011. But this insurgency ranges from Baath loyalists, Shiite and Sunni militant groups, to those of the Al Quaeda in Iraq that the "Islamic state" came from. These groups became adept in making improvised weaponries coming from conventional munitions and arsenals abandoned in 2003 by Iraq's defeated military, along with ingredients that bombmakers developed themselves. 

"Free Syrian army" officers assisted in using a makeshift
 anti-aircraft weapon. One picture showed using an electronic
compass from a smartphone to help them aim their weapon near
Menagh military airport in Aleppo during the Syrian Civil War.
Source: Mahmoud Hassano/Reuters

So were the "Free Syrian Army", who mostly depend on Turkey and the west for their assistance against Assad. However, some of them are radical muslims who, like Al Quaeda and the rival "Islamic state", do also create their own set of weaponry. At times they are known for their Mortars and rocket launchers like what happened in the battle of Aleppo, all coming from their workshops with all its crudity. Another article from the Atlantic also attests the same "creativity" as shown by these "rebels" coming from their workshops:

"While the rebels are using many modern tools, they've also come up with their own makeshift solutions. In these weapons workshops, anti-aircraft guns are welded to pickup trucks and armor shields are attached to machine guns and cars. Mortar shell nose cones are turned on lathes and explosives are mixed by hand. Homemade grenades are launched by jury-rigged shotguns or giant slingshots in the urban battlefields of Aleppo and Damascus."

These would say that from their weapons turned their variant of terrorism as "industrial" the way they used their creative mindset and needed a lot of material in large quantities to pursue their agenda. The tubes, trigger mechanisms, empty gas cylinders or fire extinguishers, necessary metal to be fused and all, these for them would say  meant to continue their terror or as what they say "continue the resistance" regardless of their "lack of support" from their allies. Yet, these would say end destroyed or captured by their enemies be it from the Syrian Arab Army, the Kurds, or the Russians. 

But even those who are against both the "Islamic State" and the "Free Syrian Army" also devised their own makeshift weaponry. The Kurds for instance, they also devised their own weapons from their workshops, crude like their adversaries indeed, and at times they captured weapons from the enemy in order to improved their understanding of their types along with those coming from abroad, aside from using it for their frontline operations.

All in all one would say that their creativity in making weapons was necessary. This note is not meant to condone their actions but to know how these forces able to have their ways to augment their existing weapons and ordinance- that at times taking their practise to new levels, with outputs different from the usual and exceptionally cruel at its worst- especially when it targets civilians the way it targets its adversaries.

sources:

https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2013/02/diy-weapons-of-the-syrian-rebels/100461/
https://www.wired.com/story/terror-industrial-complex-isis-munitions-supply-chain/
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/10/world/middleeast/isis-bombs.html