ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq’s interior ministry said Tuesday that 5.8 million weapons have been registered in a national database consolidating information on government-owned and confiscated arms, as part of ongoing efforts to bring unlicensed weapons under state control.
"The number of archived weapons within the Iraqi National Weapons Bank has reached 5,800,000 pieces,” ministry spokesperson Abbas al-Bahadli said during the ministry’s first annual conference of the Weapons Control and Regulation Offices held Monday.
Iraq continues to face widespread proliferation of unlicensed weapons, many of which are used in criminal activity and tribal conflicts. Successive governments have sought to curb their spread and impose tighter control over arms possession. An estimated eight million firearms are believed to be in circulation, contributing to recurring violence stemming from personal and social disputes in both federal Iraq and the Kurdistan Region.
The interior ministry announced the database in December, consolidating information on government-owned weapons as well as arms that have been seized or confiscated.