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Report Says Afghanistan To Become Big Arms Market
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ground-to-air- Stinger
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KABUL, Jan. 16 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Analysts have expressed concern that the U.S. plan to collect weapons from Afghans may turn Afghanistan into an arms black market, reliable sources told IslamOnline Wednesday, January 16, 2002.
The U.S. has issued a price list for arms common among Afghans. According to the list, an anti-aircraft Stinger missile means $ 15000 (to be paid by the U.S. to its Afghan owner), while a Kalashinkov gun’s price is $ 3000.
These prices are too high compared to current arms prices in Afghanistan. The U.S. goal is clear: to tempt the Afghans to sell their weapons.
But Sahib Zadah Abdul Wagid, an Afghan analyst, believes the U.S. plan “will not lead to controlling the arms market in Afghanistan; it will rather lead to the exact opposite.”
Wagid added that some arms dealers have already started “smuggling into Afghanistan local Pakistani arms to sell them to the Americans,” according to the soaring price list
“Also, some former communists – some of whom are friends of Abdul Rashid Dostom – are seeking to sign agreements to buy arms from Soviet military factories for Afghanistan,” said Wagid.
Judge Mohammed Hakim, an Afghan lawmaker, expressed his fear that Afghanistan may become one of the world arms markets. He said weapons would start flooding into Afghanistan from Pakistan, Central Asia, Russia and China, to be sold to the Americans at higher prices.
Hakim, however, reiterated that the Americans may have taken the necessary measures to control arms smuggling into Afghanistan once they started paying the Afghans to hand over their weapons.
Northern Alliance (NA) troops in Nangarhar Province in eastern Afghanistan, along with U.S. forces there, have reportedly collected huge amounts of weapons from Gibarhar and Sarkharwood.
NA troops have transferred collected weapons, light and heavy ones, to Punchir Valley. Forces loyal to Hazarat Ali, NA leader in Nangarhar, have also collected a large numbers of arms and taken them to Kashmoul mountainous area northeast of Nangarhar. This means each party is collecting and storing weapons in its own fortified area.
NA and U.S. forces have reportedly used violence with those who refused to hand over their weapons, unnamed Iranian and Afghani officials told IOL.
Observers are concerned that the U.S. plan to collect weapons from the Afghans may turn Afghanistan into a black market for arms, especially with the war-torn country sharing 5, 769 Kilometer-long difficult borders with six countries.
In their plan, the Americans are reportedly to focus on anti-aircraft missiles and U.S.-made Stinger for fear of such missiles reaching the hands of its enemies or the hands of Israel’s enemies, e.g., Palestinians or Hizbollah .
During the 1980s, the United States has provided the Afghan Mujahideen, then fighting occupation Russian forces, with Stingers and other types of weapons.
Weapons have always enjoyed a remarkable place in Afghanistan. To all Afghani tribes, especially dominant Pashtuns, arms mean a great deal and are a matter of honor and dignity.
“That will surely constitute a major obstacle before the American plan," an Afghan analyst told IOL, " The Afghans will not hand over their honor and dignity that easily, not even at such high prices as offered by the Americans.”
Afghanistan notably became the largest arms depot in the area, following the withdrawal of Russian troops. Light arms in Afghanistan are estimated as much more than in Iran or Pakistan.
Some neighboring countries are concerned about the Afghan people possessing such huge quantities of arms, something which poses a threat of conflict and unrest in the area.
It is true that two decades of struggle against Russian invasion and civil war have led to the destruction of most heavy weapons. However, Afghans still own large quantities of arms, especially Russian-made light guns: Kalashinkov, BM41, MB16, BM129, R.P.G., and mobile missile launchers.
Commenting on the significance of weapons to the Afghan people, Habibullah Rafie, an Afghan writer said: “No doubt, weapons have come to be a life necessity for the Afghans. However, arms are the reason behind the destruction of Afghanistan in two decades of war.”
Meanwhile, a renowned Afghan poet said Wednesday, January 16, that the United States is trying to turn Afghanistan into its military base to threaten regional powers and control economic resources in Central Asia, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"My understanding of the situation in Afghanistan is that the American program has been a previously-orchestrated, precise and long-term one to find a military base for controlling Central Asia," the Paris-based poet said.
In an interview with AFP, Pedram, an ethnic Tajik, warned that a bloody military confrontation would engulf the region in six months' time and an anti-U.S. resistance struggle will flare up in Afghanistan.
"It is a bloody issue inside the country," he said. "After the current excitement drops, a war will break out in Asia" with the Americans attacking Iran, Iraq and Syria using their base in Afghanistan.
The Tehran-educated poet, originally from Afghanistan's northeastern province of Badakhshan, said the arrest and the transfer of Afghan Taliban troops to the U.S. base in Guantanamo, Cuba, was an insult to Afghans.
"The Taliban are criminals, but they should be tried inside Afghanistan. It is an insult to Afghans that the Americans tie their hands and transfer them to Cuba," he said.
A former member of Afghanistan's writers' association, Pedram, who is in his early 40s, is noted for his Persian free-style poetry. He left Afghanistan for Iran after the Taliban seized power in 1996.
The poet migrated to France three years ago where he studies Afghanistan's Islamic way of thinking in the past century at the Sorbonne University in Paris.
Pedram said that the current U.S. military operation in Afghanistan was purely politically motivated.
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