US Counter-Terrorism Officials Ask Toyota How Come ISIS Has so Many of Their Trucks

We've seen them during the countless wars in Africa, and now we're seeing them again in the Middle Eastern conflicts. Apparently, a US Treasury Counter-Terrorism unit has seen them as well and has started asking questions around.

The first they turned to was, of course, the carmaker itself. Toyota Hilux and Land Cruiser trucks feature heavily in ISIS propaganda videos, and US officials think they're just too many for all of them to be stolen. This statement is based only on a hunch, though, as earlier reports clearly show they can. For example, more than 800 Toyota trucks had been reported missing in Sydney, Australia, between 2014 and 2015 alone.

That's why they've asked Toyota to help determine how can the Islamic State have so many of their products.

As ABC News reports, former American diplomat Mark Wallace thinks ISIS supporters buy the trucks from Toyota dealerships and then hand them over to ISIS militants. “Regrettably, the Toyota Land Cruiser and Hilux have effectively become almost part of the ISIS brand,” he said.

Toyota, on the other hand, says it has a very strict policy against selling vehicles to terrorist organizations, but that doesn't mean it can control where its cars go if they are repurposed or re-sold.

Commenting on the situation, Ed Lewis, Toyota’s Washington-based director of public policy and communications, said: “We have procedures in place to help ensure our products are not diverted for unauthorized military use." But he also continued: “It is impossible for Toyota to completely control indirect or illegal channels through which our vehicles could be misappropriated.”

While we all know Toyota makes very good trucks, we think it's kind of ridiculous how the US officials regard cutting access to new Toyotas for ISIS as a means of fighting the organization. And if we were the CEOs of Mitsubishi or Isuzu, we'd be expecting a call from an undisclosed number shortly.