LONDON: Governments who cut their armed forces end up relying on private suppliers to transport their weapons with few controls, Amnesty International said.

As these logistics networks proliferate in conflicts across the globe, international arms control rules are floundering, the human rights group said in a report urging tough government action to re-impose control.
"Arms supply chains are becoming increasingly sub-contracted and completely out of control," Amnesty's arms expert Brian Wood told Reuters. "They are talking about curbing brokering but they haven't even got round to transport.

"Brokering is increasingly common, with main contractors sub-contracting supply, transportation and collection in an ever lengthening and increasingly opaque chain," he added as his report "Dead on Time - arms, transportation, brokering and the threat to human rights" was published.

Not only were governments exploiting the poor controls to hide their activities, but increasingly armed opposition groups and organised crime rings were taking advantage of the murky markets to obtain their weaponry, he said in an interview.

The report, published ahead of a United Nations meeting from June 26 on small arms trafficking, says that increasingly weapons are either destined for or diverted to countries under arms embargoes or to insurgent and criminal groups.