Thanks to the problems in Iraq and many Iraqis wanting to leave the country, often illegally, a lot of soldiers and other members of the state security forces sold their weapons as part of efforts to raise funds for their journey, Zamel says. Additionally some soldiers simply supplement their incomes by registering their weapons as lost and then selling them.
And he believes the standard of weapons sold at Maridi is higher than the standard of official issue armaments. “Some army officers come to this market to buy what they need because they know its better quality,” Zamel says.
Another source at the market who wished to remain anonymous, told NIQASH that there are members of the volunteer Shiite Muslim militias who take their officially supplied weapons and sell them on the black market to make money.
Mostly the gun markets are in out of the way places that the official army or police don’t go to. And the arms dealers are creative, the source says. Even if security did close the gun markets down the traders would doubtless still sell using dedicated, and private, Facebook pages.
Most households in Baghdad own at least one gun and the arms dealers say that more and more people are buying weapons illegally. They are used in tribal conflicts that turn violent and for personal protection, the dealers suggest. Often young men will boast about their guns.
“But the customers here are not just ordinary people,” says Hassan al-Yasiri, who also has a stand at the market selling light weapons like pistols, automatic weapons and grenades. “A lot of them are army officers and government officials.”
Comments are closed.