Conflict Armament Research (CAR) is a UK-based investigative organization that tracks the supply of conventional weapons, ammunition, and related military materiel (such as IEDs) into conflict-affected areas.
Established in 2011, CAR specializes in working with governments to find out how weapons end up in war zones, and in the hands of terrorists and insurgent groups.
Investigators photograph all markings and distinguishing characteristics, GPS-record all recovery sites and use in-field interviews with local stakeholders to build a case for each item documented.
[6] The group reported that the majority of arms and ammunition were originally made in China and Russia, with almost a third of recovered weapons having first been produced by EU member states that were former Warsaw Pact countries.
[16] From the beginning of the Yemen conflicts, Houthi forces have deployed increasingly intelligent weapon and surveillance systems against their enemies such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
Upon this discovery, the CAR investigation team concluded that Houthi forces were not the ones producing these UAVs, in fact they predicted that the United Arab Emirates were the ones designing and manufacturing them.
[17] Reports from CAR show that despite active UN and EU arms embargoes, the Sudanese government has continued to import military and dual-use goods, some of which it has used in the conflict in South Kordofan and Blue Nile state.
CAR says that since 2014 newly manufactured Sudanese military materiel has been found in the hands of armed groups in South Sudan, Central African Republic, Côte d'Ivoire, Libya, Mali, and Niger.
[20][21] Research from the CAR investigation team discovered that there were a small number of international weapons and defense systems suppliers that were traced to the Sudan People's Liberation Army including China, Israel, Ukraine and the United Arab Emirates.
These findings support the hypothesis conducted by the CAR investigation team that there was a third party from those countries that were trying to smuggle weapons and ammunition into South Sudan.
The group documented how weapons looted or leaked from Libyan stockpiles after the civil war in 2011 had fuelled armed actors in Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, Niger, and Syria.
[23] CAR also discovered a new set of weapons used in a series of attacks against hotels and security forces by Islamist armed groups in the Sahel that were "unlike any previously documented in the sub-region.
[33] Sudanese stockpiles and regional weapon diversion: Sudan People's Liberation Army were investigated and analyzed because they were in possession of captured equipment recovered by CAR.