Dem: ISIS is using U.S. arms

A senior Democratic lawmaker says that a Sunni militant group has used U.S. arms to wreak havoc across Iraq.

{mosads}Asked to respond to Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) contention that the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) have made gains in Iraq due to their possession of U.S. arms, California Rep. Brad Sherman told The Hill that Paul is partially correct.

“I think what he was saying was [the United States] provided arms to moderate Sunnis. And ISIS, being more ferocious, swept in and just took them, and it is clear that that happened to some degree,” said Sherman, the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs International Terrorism and Nonproliferation subcommittee.

Paul contended on CNN’s “State of the Union” that ISIS gained the U.S.-provided weapons when the al-Qaeda offshoot was working with Syrian rebels to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad.

“I think we have to understand first how we got here. We have been arming ISIS in Syria,” the Blue Grass State senator said.

The administration has reportedly assisted the moderate opposition in Syria, but details about the dissemination of those resources are unclear.