Update: Iraq announces start of VN22 armoured vehicle production

08 APRIL 2024

by Jeremy Binnie

   

A still from a video released on 3 April 2024 shows a Norinco VN22 being demonstrated for the Iraqi minister of interior. (Defence Industry Commission of Iraq (DICI))

Iraq’s state-owned defence industry has said it has begun producing Norinco VN22 6×6 armoured vehicles.

The Defence Industry Commission of Iraq (DICI) posted a video on its Facebook page on 1 April in which engineer Mustafa Ati Hassan, the president of the Military Industrialization Authority, stood next to a VN22 to announce the start of production of a 6×6 vehicle he did not name at the Al-Rabie factory, which is in southeast Baghdad. He provided no further details of the programme, with the video showing a production line for 4×4 light armoured vehicles, not the VN22.