The U.S. government can’t figure out how ISIS terrorists got their hands on hundreds of brand new Toyota pickup trucks, and the Japanese automaker is stumped, too.
Top U.S. counterterror officials probed the automaker about how the Islamic State acquired a fleet of new cars after souped-up Toyota pickups loaded with weapons and packed with fighters began appearing in its propaganda videos, ABC News reported.
“This is a question we’ve been asking our neighbors,” said Lukman Faily, the Iraqi Ambassador to the United States. “How could these brand new trucks — these four-wheel drives, hundreds of them — where are they coming from?”
Toyota told officials it has no idea how ISIS got so many of its vehicles. The auto giant supports the United States’ investigation, said Ed Lewis, Toyota’s director of communications.
Lewis said while Toyota has a “strict policy to not sell vehicles to potential purchasers who may use or modify them for paramilitary or terrorist activities,” it cannot track trucks that have been stolen and resold. Many of the featured cars are older models, he said.
The ISIS videos show fighters driving Toyota Hilux pickups, the overseas version of the Tacoma. While some are older, repurposed models, others appear to be brand new.
In one clip, a caravan of white trucks emblazoned with ISIS’ black seal, rolled through Raqqa. Two thirds of those trucks were Toyotas, which rode alongside Mitsubishi, Hyundai and Isuzu pickups.
“Regrettably, the Toyota Land Cruiser and Hilux have effectively become almost part of the ISIS brand,” said Mark Wallace, CEO of the anti-terror nonprofit Counter Extremism Project. “In nearly every ISIS video, they show a fleet — a convoy of Toyota vehicles and that’s very concerning to us.”
Read more of the original article from New York Daily News
