After Ansar al Din posted the photo, I posted the picture just minutes afterwards as I thought the "Mark-1 Plumbing" was pretty peculiar and interesting. Vice News journalist Aris Roussinos quickly retweeted the photo, which then set off a spree of retweets (not to sound conceited, but I'm pretty sure I'm the first Western journalist to have noticed the picture). Aris also noted that the truck was from Texas. And after a quick Google search of the number on the door, I found he was right.
The truck, as the door so clearly points out, belongs to a company named Mark-1 Plumbing in a Texas town. I, and many others, called the business to find out more. When I called, a woman quickly answered. I don't remember her name, but I told her who I was and what I had discovered and she was happy to answer my questions.
It turns out, the company has had two trucks stolen from them not too long ago. When I first asked about the picture, she had already assumed which one I was talking about. She also said that the company had received many calls prior to mine, with about six being threatening calls from people she "couldn't understand". I just want to note here that it is unfortunate that someone would make these kinds of calls and I quickly apologized to her for that.
The woman, who very nice during the whole conversation, quickly assured me that the authorities have been notified about the picture and the calls and that it wasn't my fault. I left my number just in case and that was it. The story of how a stolen Texas truck winds up in Chechen hands in Syria is indeed an interesting one. One question still remains though: How did it get there? One idea is that the stolen trucks were taken to Mexico and then shipped off from there. But I'm not sure. What I am sure of, however, is that if I do find out just how these trucks made it to Syria, I will update.
- Caleb