M-16 Assault rifles showing up in the streets of Damascus, Syria being smuggled in from Iraq. Many trace back to the American military where they were stolen or ripped off by Iraqis.
Syria is in the midst of a vicious civil war. Islamic extremists have infiltrated the uprising and are launching attacks against the military and government, according to the government which nobody believes anyway.
In response, the military and police have cracked down hard. Open violence is rampant in the streets. People are reporting the sounds of automatic weapons and explosions as armed groups go after the police and Army.
The protesters say Syrian President must go?
Replaced by what? An Islamic caliphate or true democracy?
That has yet to be decided. In the meantime there is open violence and bloodshed in the street.
Gun running is, of course rampant.
It is one indication that the country is descending into violence and civil war.
I talked with a guy on facebook in Syria who said an M-16 American made assault rifle goes for $2500 dollars on the street in Damascus. Out of curiosity I asked where the American rifle came from. The response was “Iraq”.
An AK-47 goes for $2000 dollars and a rocket propelled grenade has gone up from $400 dollars to $2500, representing an almost 75% increase in prices. People are arming themselves, forming small bands of resistance fighters and taking the fight into the streets. It went from rock throwing and protest marches to people killing each other in armed conflict…
Several defectors involved in what they insist is a “small-scale arms trade” say most weapons that reach Syria are coming across from northern Lebanon, where the remote, unguarded frontier has been a no man’s land for arms and weapon smugglers ferrying subsidized goods from Syria and weapons from Lebanon. Which sounds right, according to sources in the United States who lived in Syria and are busy monitoring news reports of the uprising.
They say there has also been a “flood of guns and RPGs into Syria from the Sunni Muslim tribes of Iraq’s Western Anbar province”, who have close ties with their brethren in eastern Syria, hundreds of kilometers from Damascus.
Increasingly these arms are proving to be American made, like I said. Time and time again I asked the question where the weapons were coming from, time and time again I got the same answer Iraq. Many were stolen, misappropriated or ripped off from the American military in Iraq during the military invasion and subsequent occupation of that country.