BAGHDAD - Like many of his colleagues, Abu Zaid was issued an Austrian-made Glock pistol when he joined the new U.S.-trained and equipped Iraqi police force. But after narrowly escaping death twice, including being shot at near a polling station in Baghdad during national elections in December 2005, he decided to quit, he said.
"I sold my Glock pistol and my bullet-proof vest for $1,500 so that I can feed my family until I find a safer job. They were mine to sell, after all I had risked my life and faced death," he told Reuters. Anecdotal evidence, including interviews with arms dealers, suggests that Abu Zaid is just one of many policemen selling the highly prized pistol on the black market, already a shopper's delight for buyers with enough cash.
Everything from the ubiquitous AK-47 assault rifle, the biggest-selling item, to rocket-propelled grenade launchers, sniper rifles and belt-fed medium machine guns are available, many looted from huge arms dumps immediately after the 2003 war.
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PAKISTANI police have arrested the chief of a banned Sunni Muslim militant group with links to al-Qaeda along with four of his colleagues.
Rizwan Ahmad, the head of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi organisation, was seized in the eastern city of Lahore yesterday on suspicion of preparing suicide attacks, a senior police investigator, Omar Virk, said.
Police were still hunting for another suspect believed to be carrying suicide belts and other weaponry, Mr Virk said.
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Ovation for fiery Mahathir's claim West worse than al-Qaeda
February 6, 2007
KUALA LUMPUR: About 2000 activists applauded as the leaders of the United States, Britain and Australia were branded "fascist war criminals" at a conference in Malaysia featuring gruesome exhibits of their alleged crimes.
The former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad hosted the conference and won applause yesterday for calling for the leaders to be tried by an unofficial tribunal for war crimes in Iraq. He said the war had caused more terror than al-Qaeda.
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