Companies from 20 countries are involved in the supply chain of components that end up in ISIS explosives, a study found on Thursday, suggesting governments and firms need to do more to track the flow of cables, chemicals and other equipment. The European Union-mandated study showed that 51 companies from countries including Turkey, Brazil, and the United States produced, sold or received the more than 700 components used by ISIS to build improvised explosive devices (IEDs). IEDs are now being produced on a "quasi-industrial scale" by the militant group, which uses both industrial components that are regulated and widely available equipment such as fertiliser chemicals and mobile phones, according to Conflict Armament Research (CAR), which undertook the 20-month study.

The components were recovered during major battles around the Iraqi towns of al Rabia, Kirkuk, Mosul, and Tikrit and the Syrian town of Kobani. The report's authors said they attempted to contact the companies linked to the components, adding the firms did not respond or were not able to account for where the goods went after they left their custody.

Seven Indian companies manufactured most of the detonators, detonating cord, and safety fuses documented by CAR. Those were all legally exported under government-issued licences from India to entities in Lebanon and Turkey, CAR found.

Earlier Indian company Exomet plastics, now part of EPC, supplied 2,292 tons of precursor chemicals to Iraq, which were used in chemical attacks in Halabja by the Saddam regime. Although they later said that they had supplied chemicals to be used in pesticides.

Companies from Brazil, Romania, Russia, the Netherlands, China, Switzerland, Austria and Czech Republic were also involved, the report found.