Eight countries of Central and Eastern Europe, including Bulgaria, have approved the shipment of weapons and ammunition worth at least EUR 1.2 B to the Middle East and Turkey since 2012, with some of the weapons ending up in the hands of Islamist fighters, according to a new investigative report.

“The Middle Eastern states and Turkey in turn, funnelled arms into brutal civil wars in Syria and Yemen, the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN, and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, OCCRP, have found,” BIRN said on its website. 

The journalists’ investigation has revealed “a steady flow of weapons from Central and Eastern Europe airports to military bases in the Middle East.”

Videos and photos posted on social media point to the use of weapons and ammunition manufactured in Eastern and Central Europeby units of the Western-backed Free Syrian Army but also by fighters of Islamist groups in Syria and Yemen, according to the investigative report.

You can read here the original  story “Making a killing: The 1.2 Billion Euro Arms Pipeline to Middle East”.