The US weapons industry has new fans: ISIS fighters. In their newly released propaganda video, the fighter of the Islamic State Death Cult are eagerly showing the 7.62mm Mk 14 Enhanced Battle Rifle, which is featured “prominently” in a 38-minute highlight reel of the group’s defense of Raqqa, the ISIS stronghold where they will normally take their last stand.
The ISIS video which shows both armed drones and other unusual armament targeting Syrian soldiers is one more example of US military equipment which has ended up in the wrong hands.
As all US veterans of the wars of Afghanistan and Iraq will tell you, nothing is more haunting than the enemy getting hold of your own weapon and using it against you.
On the battlefield, ISIS is now using US military weapons against the Western backed forces that were meant to receive those said weapons in the first place.
In an article featured in the Washington Post, Marine veteran Thomas Gibbons-Neff was shown the ISIS video and identified multiple heavily armed ISIS snipers which were carrying the 7.62mm Mk 14 Enhanced Battle Rifle.
The M14 sniper’s rifle, was initially developed after the Korean War in order to be a suitable replacement for the also popular M1 Garand.
Troops fighting under U.S. Special Operations Command have accompanied special operations forces as well as a group of Army infantry platoons downrange during both the of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003.
However, the appearance of the MK14 in ISIS hands is a frustrating details of the Pentagon’s arms transfer programs.
Already in August 2015 the rifle was provided to the Free Syrian Army’s 30th Infantry Division, the Division trained by the US Department of Defense to combat ISIS fighters.
In military circles it can now be heard that arming this particular group of foreign soldiers was a ‘clusterfuck’ of massive proportions.
Given that ISIS fighters in 2017 are showing off this particular weapon in their own videos, we can only agree.
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