ISIL begins bomb production at Mosul military base

The Islamic State in Iraq and Levant, or ISIL, has set up its own facility producing bombs at a crucial military base of the Iraqi army in Mosul, which it has controlled after seizing Iraq's second largest city.

Around 218 workers have been employed at the facility in the al-Arabi military base, which had previously served as a logistic base to Iraq Army's 2nd division. ISIL has released some website photos, which blatently display bomb production at the facility, considered sympathetic to the Sunni armed group.

Twenty-one bomb experts, 35 experts for use and repairment of medium-sized bombs and two chemical weapon experts have been working at the plant, in which small cluster bombs and large cluster bombs have been produced.

According to initial information, ISIL militants, capable of producing 17 different bombs, have covered their needs for raw material like iron parts and electronic components to make a bomb from the military bases, which have been already abandoned by Iraqi forces loyal to Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who is of Shiite heritage.

The Sunni armed group has allegedly that 70 percent of the raw material used for bomb making was supplied from Germany. The armed group, who arranged the governing structure in Mosul last week, has also reportedly settled in Mosul airport, which still has radar systems, in the Tayyaran district of the city as of July 4.

In order to respond instantly to any possiple air attack, ISIL has placed 230 medium-ranged ground-to-air missiles (with a range of 50 km), which were left over from the Iraqi Army, at the airport in the al-Arabi district in the northern provincial capital city of Mosul, some 400 km north of Baghdad.