Where does al-Qaeda & Taliban get their weapons from?

[IrishBuckeye]

Now before you answer we all know that the U.S. helped arm these guys to the teeth back in the 80's but decades later these guys still seem to have an endless supply of weapons. Do they have their own manufacturing facilities? Is there a sympathetic network within Pakistan's military supplying them? Is Indian supplying them to cause continued turmoil in the region thus distracting their arch rival Pakistan? Is Iran, Russa, China, or some other nation supplying them weapons to weaken the U.S. much like the U.S. did to Russia in the 1980's? Why is there no talk of disrupting their weapons supply chain? Is the U.S. still supplying them weapons directly or indirectly somehow? We're into this war 8 years now, are weapons that the Taliban and aQ have just available in an endless supply, do they not break down?

[cali]

1. endless supply of weapons? Like what? They're pretty low tech when

it comes to weapons. We're talking small arms and the world is flooded with those.

[IrishBuckeye]

5. Why not fortify the cities/villiages like the Israelis do with settlements?

No matter how one feels about Israels settlements no one can deny that they fortify and protect them masterfully. Attacks on them are extremely rare and when attempted more often than not they fail. Why not cookie cutter their strategy? Just to large and numerous I suppose in Afghanistan?

[Syrinx]

2. I don't know the answer to your question

But I do know that it was Mika's dad who had the grand idea of funding the Mujahedeen in the first place, and he is still treated as a Democratic "wise man."

If we are going to have a peaceful planet, this "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" bullshit mindset has got to end.

Brezinski (probably spelled wrong), under, for fuck's sake, President Carter, was behind funding Osama bin Laden, because bin Laden was fighting the Soviets. Some claim Brezinski is some sort of genius, but I think he is a short-sighted dipshit.

But he does strongly resemble a deceased family friend, so I guess I'll cut him a little slack.

Not really. :)

[charlie]

3. Probably the same sources as the rest of the drug cartels

The world is awash in arms, it shouldn't be hard to snag some of it if you've got millions. Just flash the green until you find somebody who knows somebody who knows Adnan Khashoggi.

[jacko_be]

4. well

what you do have to know is if you get the age of 12 we get a bike
they get there first gun, just like kosovo, everybody has them

the ak 47 kalashnikov is one of the best weapons in the
world and it uses standard nato munition, and the standard charger
you can put this weapon for 2 years in the mud
and in will still work excellent (has been tested)
Pakistan has i think the biggest black arms market in the world
also the belgian company fn Herstall (the best small arms company in the world)
has been know to have there products there.
and, a former belgian officer in charge of the purchase of weapons for the
Belgian defense. a guy named Victor (not sure) has been know to sell (and got arrested less than a year ago)
it is a good bussines...
and they do produce there one weapons like the chinese standard weapon 9 mm is easy to copy
they don't invent new weapons they just duplicate existing ones
and that is not so hard as you may think
as it comes to weapons that are really common like ak 47 and the FNC standard
they just don't brake... they last already more then 20 years and they are sill accurate
off course it arent't just the belgium people... but all over the world they make and sell weapons

[IrishBuckeye]

6. I guess weapons never went the way how most products are today, planned obsolescence. To bad. /nm

nm

[DeSwiss]

7. Wherever they are coming from.....

...this is the most likely starting point http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/07/world/07weapons.html">(click)

[jacko_be]

8. yes but only in case of the enemy of the enemy is my friend nm

[frog92969]

9. No, also job security

and strategic instability.

[ixion]

14. when the USSR occupied Afghanistan

al-Qaida were our friends, and we supplied them with weapons.

In fact, the US financed the creation of al-Qaida.

Al-Qaida, in fact, translates to: "The Database"

[michreject]

11. I didn't know that the US manufactured AK's

Which is the primary small arms weapon of choice in the middle east.

[jacko_be]

17. I think that would be the ak-47

after the chines handgun 9mm

[Democracyinkind]

10. Dilligence and Far West Ltd. had contracts for secure cargo shipment in and out of Afghanistan

Kalashnikov's faked in China for the Afghans, Poppies for Europe. The game hasn't changed in over 10 years. You might want to ask Dick Cheney's crew for further info on that, hell they'll maybe even tell you how succesfully they deal in ICBM related technology, something the Iranians and the MIC really appreciate.

Hegel rolls in his grave...

[OffWithTheirHeads]

12. The American Taliban ie;the GOP gets em from gunshows.

[krispos42]

13. They make some of them

If you have a modest machine shop and a gun to copy (or blueprints) I don't think it's that hard to make them. There was a brief article about it in Guns & Ammo. Betcha the quality is poor.

But they can also keep them running by making their own spare parts.

:shrug:

If they can ship uncountable tons of heroin to Europe, I assume they can ship a similar amount of guns back.

I bet a lot of them used to be Soviet, too, and were pried from the dying hands of some Russian back in the 80's. The Soviets spend about 8 years there, in larger numbers than we are and in a far more aggressive posture. Plenty of time for weapons to be taken as battlefield loot or siezed in raids. Guns are durable goods if you take care of them in a reasonable fashion.

The Afghani government is corrupt as well... betcha that has something to do with it. And the Pakistani military on the border region is tribally the same as the Taliban.


There's no "one" way... it's a bunch of different ways as the market tried to fill a vacuum.

[elocs]

15. They certainly do not have the arms, support, and troops that we give the Afghanis.

We are the world's #1 superpower and we are supporting, arming, and fighting for the Afghanis and the Taliban and al-Qaeda cannot not match that whatever their numbers may be and certainly are far, far fewer than ours, but then we have always sucked at fighting a guerrilla war where the enemy does not wear uniforms and refuses to stand and fight until the end.

If the Afghani people want their own country and freedom then they need to want it more than the Taliban and al-Qaeda want to take it from them. If the Afghani people in reality want the Taliban then in the end that is their choice. As it stands now, Obama is being asked to send more troops to support a war for an illegitimate and corrupt government and without a clue of how we are to eventually get out of there.

[NNN0LHI]

16. American Weapons in the Hands of the Taliban

http://www.rd.com/your-america-inspiring-people-and-stories/american-weapons-in-the-hands-of-the-taliban/article156347.html

Our allies in Pakistan and Afghanistan are using our money to pad their pockets—or worse, giving it to terrorists.

A platoon of U.S. soldiers crouched in the darkness of Afghanistan one night last April, awaiting a group of approaching Taliban fighters. The men of Second Platoon, Company B, had spent nine months fighting in the area, near the Pakistan border, and 11 of their members had been injured or killed. This time, Company B was primed for revenge. When the Taliban came close enough, the Americans hit them with automatic-weapons fire and grenades, mowing down at least a dozen enemy fighters. It was a decisive victory. But afterward, the troops made a startling discovery.

A check of 30 magazines taken from the dead insurgents' rifles found that at least 17 held ammunition that bore the distinctive factory stamps of U.S. suppliers in California and the Czech Republic. The discovery—first made by a New York Times reporter who examined the ammunition at the scene, and later confirmed by the Pentagon—hints at a long-feared situation: that American-supplied arms are winding up with those trying to kill our troops.

It wasn't the first such incident. In July 2008, Taliban fighters attacked a U.S. outpost in the Afghan village of Wanat, killing nine American troops and wounding 27. Military investigators later discovered a local police chief had helped carry out the attack. At his police post, they found a cache of more than 70 assault rifles that were probably U.S.-supplied. The investigators picked up three more guns near the battle site itself.

But here's the most disturbing part: Pentagon officials say there's no way to know how the Taliban is getting these weapons. They could be stolen or taken from dead government troops. They could even have been sold by our allies. (Private DynCorp contractors working for the United States have reported "multiple instances" of Afghan National Police personnel allegedly selling weapons to anti-American forces.) We just don't know, because we've lost track of tens of thousands of weapons and ammunition in Afghanistan.

That's right. In January, the Government Accountability Office found that the U.S. military was not adequately tracking weapons supplied to Afghanistan's government security forces and in fact could not account for at least 87,000 of them, including machine guns and grenade launchers. Nor did the military keep reliable records for another 135,000 weapons supplied by NATO and other allies.