ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – The Iraqi Defense Industries Commission (IDIC) said on Sunday that the Iraqi government saved 700 million dollars between 2023 and 2024 by producing weapons and ammunition domestically.

“Contracts with the authority to locally produce the weapons and ammunition needed by the Iraqi armed forces during 2023 and 2024 have contributed to saving more than $700 million,” IDIC chief Mustafa Aati told state media on Sunday, noting that this sum would otherwise have been spent on acquiring military hardware from foreign suppliers.

Aati added that Iraqi factories are in the process of manufacturing new varieties of “light weapons, medium ammunition, and heavy artillery ammunition.”

In a meeting with Minister of Defence Thabet al-Abbasi in October, Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid urged the minister to emphasize bolstering Baghdad’s capabilities “in the areas of armament, training, and equipment” in order to be better prepared to address regional tensions and for the “safeguarding” of the nation.

Iraq ranked 43rd in military strength out of 145 countries analyzed in 2025 by GlobalFirepower, an index that seeks to document nations’ military capabilities. The country scored a Power Index of 0.77 (on a scale where 0.00 is ‘perfect’), a metric that makes use of “over 60 individual factors… ranging from quantity of military units and financial standings to logistical capabilities and geography,” according to GlobalFirepower.

The Iraqi security environment has been profoundly impacted by the rise to prominence of the Islamic State (ISIS) in 2014, during which time security forces struggled to contain the group’s expansion over swathes of Iraq.

Despite being territorially defeated in 2017, remnants of the group still pose a security threat to the country through sleeper cells and sporadic attacks. In recent years, Iraq has implemented measures to secure its borders and internal environment, aiming to mitigate the ISIS threat and maintain stability.