Word: enfield
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When a rebel band does get hold of a modern Kalashnikov, the weapon is likely to end up as a status symbol in the hands of the tribal elder, while the younger warriors, men with better eyesight and surer footing, are left to fight with bolt-action British Lee-Enfield rifles...
Outgunned and outnumbered, the motley, disjointed forces of mujahidin -the "holy warriors" as they call themselves-were relying mostly on light machine guns captured from Soviet caches, and automatic rifles or other light arms provided by their Chinese backers. Some carried old Enfield rifles from border villages that have long specialized in hand-crafted weapons. Last week, as they had pledged to U.S. Defense Secretary Harold Brown during his recent visit to Peking, the Chinese stepped up deliveries of arms supplies across the Karakoram Pass into Pakistan; even so, the rebels received nothing heavier than mortars or light artillery pieces...
...insurgency in Afghanistan has turned the place into a boomtown. Reports DeVoss: "Mud-hut arms factories are busy 24 hours a day. A handcrafted Kalashnikov rifle sells for $1,700. For just under $1,000, Chicago-style tommy guns are a bargain. The preferred weapon is the Enfield; its bullets cost $1 apiece, as compared with $2.20 for a Kalashnikov round. But Dara's craftsmen will produce any weapon requested. A man polishing the barrel of a Sten gun told me: 'We will do all we can to help the Afghan people. At our factory, all mujahidin receive...
...mujahidin, which in Afghanistan's Dari language means roughly "holy warriors," are armed mainly with shotguns and ancient Enfield rifles, and thus are no match for the Taraki regime's Soviet-equipped 80,000-man army. But the rebellion has spread to 15 of the country's 28 provinces, and while guerrilla activity is most intense in the remote areas bordering on Iran in the west and Pakistan in the east, the regime has been forced to tighten security everywhere. Foreign diplomats in Kabul reckon that more than 12,000 political prisoners have been jailed. Major intersections...
...harshly over the next four years. At the peak of the fighting, the Shah supplied helicopters and pilots to help 70,000 Pakistani soldiers put down the rebellion of 55,000 bearded, turbaned Muslim guerrillas, who were mostly armed with local versions of Britain's Edwardian-vintage Lee-Enfield rifle. Since then, the Baluch have been relatively quiet. But members of a Marxist Baluchistan People's Liberation Front have found sanctuary in Afghanistan, and resentment of Pakistan's unfulfilled promises of greater freedom lingers. So too does concern among some Western analysts that future upheaval in Baluchistan...