A report by Conflict Armament Research (CAR) has suggested that ISIS’s supply chain of improvised explosive device (IED) components could stretch to roughly 20 countries worldwide.

The military watchdog’s report has traced 51 companies that produced and sold more than 700 IED components used by ISIS.

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The companies were based in countries including Turkey, India, Brazil, Japan, Switzerland, and the US.

The European Union (EU) financed-report follows a 20-month study conducted by CAR on components recovered from the Iraqi towns of al Rabia, Kirkuk, Mosul, and Tikrit, and Kobani, Syria.

"Companies having effective accounting systems to establish where the goods went after them would act as a deterrent."

Of the 51 companies, 13 Turkish and seven Indian firms supplied IED components, including chemical precursors, detonating cords, detonators, cables and wires.

CAR executive director James Bevan was quoted by Reuters as saying: "These findings support growing international awareness that IS forces in Iraq and Syria are very much self-sustaining, acquiring weapons and strategic goods, such as IED components, locally and with ease.

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"Companies having effective accounting systems to establish where the goods went after them would act as a deterrent."

In November 2015, CAR identified the origins of cartridges manufactured for machine and submachine guns, rifles, and pistols.

More than 1,700 cartridges used by ISIS were collected last July and August in northern Iraq and Syria. One cartridge was found to be of Soviet origin, and dated back to the 1940s.

The report claimed that Russia and the former Soviet Union produced a total of 492 of the recovered shells, followed by China and the US, who supplied 445 and 323 of the cartridges respectively.