Word: 47s
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...reaching the top of the pass that led back out of the Panjshir Valley. As we reached the summit, we saw before us a seemingly unending stream of small guerrilla pack trains, each laden with heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, burlap sacks of ammunition, mortars and AK-47s. The horses stumbled as they tried to climb the zigzagging paths...
...Voorst had ever seen was a collection of grimy peasant tents spread out on a dusty knoll outside the town of Mahabad, in the Kurdish mountains of western Iran. There, a clientele of mercenaries and international agents milled about, examining Israeli-made UZI automatics, Chinese and Soviet AK-47s, boxes of grenades, pre-World War II Czech-made Brno rifles and spanking new U.S. Colt .45 automatics. "For the serious customer," says Van Voorst, "a salesman would casually discharge a few rounds into a nearby hillside...
...scene was shocking, but it was an aptly ironic image of the times. A winner of the Nobel Peace Prize shot by soldiers?his own?wielding Soviet AK-47s (market price: $750), who had jumped from a Soviet Zil truck (price: $18,000) that was towing a North Korean antitank gun ($35,000). In the background American-made M60 battle tanks ($2 million each) rumbled on in the parade of Egyptian military might, while six French Mirage jet fighters ($2.5 million) flew overhead in tight formation...
Across the Islamic world, from Tripoli to Tehran, the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was celebrated by bursts of bullets from every revolutionary's favorite automatic weapon. More than 10 million AK-47s, designed by Mikhail Kalashnikov, are now in circulation throughout the world...
Small arms are a smaller problem. On the outskirts of Tabriz in northern Iran, as in hundreds of similar sites in the Third World, entrepreneurs have set up tent city arms bazaars offering everything from used Soviet and Chinese AK-47s (Soviet model: $150; Chinese copy: $75) to new U.S. Colt .45 automatic pistols ($300), all of which have found their way from armies to the underground...