IRBIL, Iraq -- Six months ago, Sunni Arab militants faced a steep firepower imbalance in their uprising against the U.S.-equipped Iraqi army west of Baghdad.
But once their campaign for the city of Fallujah was launched in January, their lethal capabilities were bolstered from the stockpiles of the Iraqi armed forces. Many soldiers fled, throwing down their weapons, which were picked up by the insurgents. Police stations and security posts overrun by Sunni militants yielded more arms to be turned against the forces of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Shiite Muslim-led government.
"Praise Allah, we soon had enough weapons to fight for one or two years," said Ahmad Dabaash, spokesman for the Islamic Army, a Sunni rebel faction, who spoke in a hotel lobby in Iraq's northern Kurdistan region. "And now? Don't even ask!"
By "now," he was referring to the current ground assault by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the al-Qaida breakaway group that in the past two weeks has seized large parts of northern and central Iraq, including Mosul, Iraq's second-most populous city. Fighting alongside the Islamic State formations are other Iraqi Sunni factions such as the Islamic Army, which rose against the U.S. occupation a decade ago.
As the Iraqi government mobilizes to halt the insurgents' advance toward Baghdad, the capital, there is no full accounting of the stocks of plundered arms, ordnance and gear. But experts agree that the haul is huge.
Rival Syrian rebel factions already report seeing U.S.-built, Islamic State-commandeered Humvees almost as far east as the vicinity of Aleppo, 250 miles from Iraq. The influx of arms and fighters from Iraq could shift the balance of power among fractious rebel groups fighting for supremacy in Syria.
The Islamic State, which also reportedly snatched the equivalent of close to $500 million in cash from a Mosul bank, has been catapulted to the position of the world's wealthiest and best-equipped militant group, analysts say. Its riches easily eclipse those of al-Qaida under Osama bin Laden, despite his personal fortune. The group, which has attracted thousands of fighters from the Arab world, Europe and elsewhere, also controls a broad swath of contiguous territory in the heart of the Middle East.
"ISIS are well-trained, very capable, and have advanced weapons systems that they know how to use," said Michael Stephens, researcher at the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies.
In the current Islamic State-led thrust, the scenario played out earlier by Sunni insurgents in western Iraq has been replicated on a monumental scale.
Government forces retreated en masse from the onslaught, leaving behind a military hardware bonanza, including the U.S.-made armored Humvees as well as trucks, rockets, artillery pieces, rifles, ammunition and even a helicopter. Some of the seized materiel was old or otherwise nonfunctioning, but a lot was promptly put to use on the battlefield.
Though the Islamic State initially encountered little opposition from the Iraqi army in central and western Iraq, the insurgents have not directly challenged Kurdish troops known as the peshmerga who control a more than 600-mile front in northern Iraq.
The Islamic State "took the weapons stores of the 2nd and 3rd [Iraqi army] Divisions in Mosul, the 4th Division in Salah al Din, the 12th Division in the areas near Kirkuk, and another division in Diyala," said Jabbar Yawar, secretary-general of the Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs. On a map, he indicated an arc denoting various provinces and cities strung across northern and central Iraq.
"We're talking about armaments for 200,000 soldiers, all from the Americans," Yawar said.
With such an immense quantity of captured weaponry, Yawar said, the Islamic State and its confederates are now capable of laying down "a colossal intensity of bullets" against their foes.
The plundered weapons and likely flood of new recruits might shift the initiative among rebel groups in neighboring Syria. The Islamic State emerged from the turmoil of the Syrian conflict but later suffered setbacks in rebel infighting.
The lightning assault and attendant publicity may be winning new allies, even among the Nusra Front, the al-Qaida arm in Syria.
Last week, a group of Al Nusra rebels in the Syrian town of Bokamal, along the Euphrates River on the border with Iraq, pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, according to various accounts. The Islamic State's captured Humvees helped alter the balance of power on the border battlefield, said a Nusra fighter reached via Skype.
More Islamic State militants and weapons are expected to pour into Syria from Iraq, said Col. Abdulrazzaq Abu Bilal, commander with Liwa Tawheed, one of the Syrian rebel groups aligned against the Islamic State.
"After the Iraqi borders opened and ISIS seized control of the Dair Alzour suburbs, this gave them the motivation to advance toward Aleppo," said the rebel colonel, a defector from the Syrian air force.
A Section on 06/30/2014