Isis has enough weapons to carry on fighting for two years, UN warns 
 
 A new report prepared for the United Nations Security Council warns that the militant group known as the Islamic State (Isis) possesses sufficient reserves of small arms, ammunition and vehicles to wage its war for Syria and Iraq for up to two years. 
 
 The size and breadth of the Isis arsenal provides the group with durable mobility, range and a limited defense against low-flying aircraft. Even if the US-led bombing campaign continues to destroy the group’s vehicles and heavier weapons, the UN report states, it “cannot mitigate the effect of the significant volume of light weapons” Isis possesses. 
 
 Those weapons “are sufficient to allow [Isis] to continue fighting at current levels for six months to two years”, the UN report finds, making Isis not only the world’s best-funded terrorist group but among its best armed. 
 
 Isis, along with its former rival turned occasional tactical ally the Nusra Front, are sufficiently armed to threaten the region “even without territory”, the report concludes. 
 
 The report, months in the making, recommends the UN implement new steps to cut off Isis’s access to money and guns. 
 
 The Isis arsenal, according to the UN assessment, includes T-55 and T-72 tanks; US-manufactured Humvees; machine guns; short-range anti-aircraft artillery, including shoulder-mounted rockets captured from Iraqi and Syrian military stocks; and “extensive supplies of ammunition”. One member state, not named in the report, contends that Isis maintains a motor pool of 250 captured vehicles. 
 
 Much of the Isis weapons stocks, particularly “state of the art” weaponry stolen from the US-backed Iraqi military, was “unused” before Isis seized it, the report finds. But some of the relatively complex weapons “may be too much of a challenge” for Isis to effectively wield or maintain. 
 
 Earlier this year, speculation focussed on Isis’s potential ability to produce chemical weapons after it seized Iraqi facilities that had contributed to Saddam Hussein’s illicit weapons programs, but the UN report casts doubt on the likelihood that Isis possesses the “capability to fully exploit material it might have seized”. Nor does the UN report believe that Isis can manufacture its own chemical or other weapons of mass destruction. 
 
 But at least one anonymous member state has provided information about “chemicals and poison-coated metal balls” placed inside Isis’s homemade bombs to maximize damage. In October, Kurdish forces defending the Syrian town of Kobani from Isis reported cases of skin blistering, burning eyes and difficulty breathing after the detonation of an Isis bomb. 
 
 The UN Security Council is expected to take up consideration of the report on Wednesday. 
 
 The report recommends the UN adopt new waves of sanctions designed to disrupt the well-financed Isis’s economic health. Significant among them is a call for states bordering Isis-controlled territory to “promptly seize all oil tanker trucks and their loads” coming in or going out. 
 
 While the report warns that Isis has alternate revenue sources, and does not predict that truck seizures can eliminate Isis’s oil smuggling money, it holds out hope that raising the costs to smuggling networks and trucking companies will deter them from bringing Isis oil to market. 
 
 To combat Isis’s ability to resupply its weapons stocks and launder money, the report recommends the UN mandate that no aircraft originating from Isis-held territory can land on airstrips in member states, and to prohibit flights into Isis-held territory. Exemptions would be made for humanitarian relief planes. 
 
 The report comes on the heels of an October report to the Security Council assessing that 15,000 fighters from 80 countries have flooded into Syria and Iraq to fight alongside Isis and other militant groups. 
 
 While still months off, the US has indicated it will intensify its fight against Isis, primarily in Iraq. After doubling the US troop commitment there, defense officials have said the US will bolster 12 Iraqi and Kurdish brigades, and may even join in the Iraqi fighting for key terrain, such as the borderlands between Syria and Iraq or the city of Mosul. ||||| UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations’ top human rights official called on the Muslim world to denounce the “monstrous” crimes of the extremist group that seeks to establish an Islamic state in Iraq and Syria, calling its actions both a violation of international law and Islamic tenets. 
 
 Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, a member of the Jordanian royal family and the first Muslim to be named high commissioner for human rights, on Tuesday urged the Security Council to back efforts to overturn the Islamic State’s “ideology of violence.” 
 
 His speech was equally a message to the Muslim world. 
 
 “It is also disturbing how few to nonexistent have been the public demonstrations of anger in the Arab and Muslims worlds over the crimes being perpetrated in Iraq — notwithstanding the clear condemnation by many Arab and Islamic governments,” Mr. Al Hussein said. 
 
 Citing the opinion of Muslim clerics, he said the group had violated Shariah in many instances, through conversions, the reintroduction of slavery and the killing of civilians. He said Islam also prohibited the killing of diplomats and emissaries, which could be extended to journalists and aid workers. 
 
 His comments come as an American-led coalition expands military action against Islamic State strongholds in Iraq and Syria, but has so far been unable to stop its killing rampage. On Sunday, the Islamic State announced the beheading of an American, Peter Kassig. 
 
 On Wednesday, the Security Council is scheduled to discuss how to increase international cooperation against the Islamic State. It has already passed a measure calling on countries around the world to stop the flow of money and fighters to banned terrorist groups. A United Nations panel of experts recommended that the council crack down on the ability of the Islamic State to collect oil revenues by requiring countries to seize oil coming from Islamic State territory. 
 
 Separately, the United Nations envoy to Iraq, Nickolay E. Mladenov, said the efforts of the new Iraqi government and the American-led airstrikes were yielding some results. The bombings had destroyed some of the insurgents’ infrastructure and kept them from gaining new territory. 
 
 Mr. Mladenov said there were reports that their funds were dwindling and they were being forced to cut rations and salaries to their fighters. 
 
 Most important, he said, he was no more worried about the prospect of Iraq’s disintegration, as he had been just some months ago. “We are not looking at a collapse of Iraqi state. We’ve turned the tide,” he said. 
 
 Iraq, however, has paid a heavy price already. Since the beginning of the year, he said, 10,000 civilians have been killed and 20,000 injured. 
 
 Mr. Al Hussein, the high commissioner for human rights, said his office was also investigating the actions of the Iraqi authorities and pro-government Shia militias. 
 
 He went on to say that his office had concluded that the Islamic State had most likely violated three of five offenses that are listed under crime of genocide. He urged Iraq to consider acceding to the treaty that created the International Criminal Court and at least accept the court’s jurisdiction over possible international crimes committed in “the current situation.” 
 
 Asked about the prospects of Iraq joining the International Criminal Court, Mr. Mladenov said he, too, had encouraged the government to consider it. “This has not been overruled by the Iraqis,” he said, “but it needs to be discussed at greater length.”
– If the flow of weapons to ISIS was completely cut off today, the militants would still have enough weapons to battle on for up to two years, according to a United Nations report. The report says that while airstrikes can destroy the group's vehicles and heavier weapons, including tanks and US-made Humvees, it "cannot mitigate the effect of the significant volume of light weapons," and the group's arsenal is big enough to make it a threat even if it didn't hold territory, the Guardian reports. But while the group has seized Iraqi facilities used in Saddam Hussein's weapons programs, the report doubts the group has the "capability to fully exploit material it might have seized" and create chemical weapons. ISIS is extremely well funded as well as heavily armed, notes the report, which calls on countries bordering territory held by the militants to "promptly seize all oil tanker trucks and their loads" entering and leaving to cut off one source of funding. In a speech yesterday, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, who is a member of the Jordanian royal family, urged the Muslim world to denounce the "monstrous" crimes of ISIS, reports the New York Times. It is "disturbing how few to nonexistent have been the public demonstrations of anger in the Arab and Muslim worlds over the crimes being perpetrated in Iraq," he said.