VBS TV: "Gun Markets of Pakistan": Where the Taliban Goes Shopping (+ Slideshow)

"But how do they get all these AK-47s out there?" I asked a D.C. cab driver last year, while he was telling me about the violence that's kept his familial village and much of the rest of Pakistan's hilly tribal northwest in the stone ages. "They build them," he said nonchalantly.

The bulk of Pakistan's homemade automatic weapons and explosive devices are forged, built and sold at Darra Adamkhel, a village located near Peshawar where main street is an open-air arms market.

The lawless surrounding Northwest Frontier Province, on the border with Afghanistan, is said to be one of the most dangerous places in the world. Just before the Pakistani military closed off foreign access to the region in October of 2009, Vice's Suroosh Alvi paid a visit, with the help of a government connection and a team of AK-47 toting bodyguards. What he found was a smorgasboard of DIY killing tech that's helping to feed increasing tensions and violence between just about everyone — the Taliban, local tribes, the Pakistani army, the Americans. A kind of Best Buy for tribesman, militants and terrorists, Darra has also helped maintain a terribly healthy culture of guns and inter-familial factions, in which which toting a Kalishnikov is simply a sign of honor and a male fashion accessory.

The market's roots go back hundreds of years. During the nineteenth century. the British rulers of India turned a blind eye to the local arms trade in return for safe passage, and to create a buffer zone against Afghanistan. In the 1970s, the New York Times described the "atmosphere of hard work, honesty and friendliness in this tribal town, where most people devote their lives to making submachine guns, assassination pistols and hundreds of other lethal weapons."

American arms support for the Taliban in the 1980s didn't help the situation. A day-long inferno at a government weapons depot in the 1980's, which supplied US- and Saudi-funded arms to Afghans during their war against the Soviets, literally rained modern weaponry on the locals.

The market is made up of a warren of small barren brick factories, where upwards of 1,000 guns are manufactured every day, mostly by hand. The vendors are Pashtuns, the ethnic group that comprised the majority of the mujahideen who kicked the Soviets out of Afghanistan in the late '80s. Across tables and blankets they display a cornucopia of choices: cheap copies of Warsaw Pact copies of Western pistols for less than twenty dollars, six-dollar pen guns, homemade AK-47's for just under $200, imported Chinese AKs for an extra fifty, and piles of bullets, sold by the kilo. Hashish is readily available too.

"DARRA ADAM KHEL", by YouTube user majidafridi2003: 

When Suroosh returned last summer, he found that the fuse on this powder keg has become even shorter. The Pakistani army has injected more troops into the tribal areas, where Taliban and al Qaeda thrive; U.S. and British troops are attempting to close in from the other side of the border, in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, violence has spread to Pakistan's urban centers, where extremists have been detonating bombs and taking over police stations.

But the cities are also home to a cultural explosion that's given rise to vibrant art scenes and scores of rock and metal bands. Television networks operate uncensored by a government renowned for corruption.

These days, Darra Adamkhel, where vicious suicide bombings of mosques and schools are not uncommon, is said to be completely run by the Taliban. They purchase the guns, then cross the border to fight the U.S. army in Afghanistan, or they drive through the mountains to the south to fight the Pakistani army.

The underground small arms trade continues unabated throughout the region and the rest of the world's apocalyptic hotspots. Efforts to curtail the ilicit trade of weapons on an international level have mostly run aground thanks to the United States, which, with the strong support of the American gun lobby, has helped to deadlock United Nations discussions; the State Department says the matter is not "controversial."

In the $30 billion arms market amongst developing countries, the U.S. is the leading retailer of arms. Pakistan is the biggest buyer, at around $5 billion in munitions purchases a year.

For their part, American officials say that the arms used by Taliban forces in Afghanistan come from Iran and China. Iran is also accused of exporting arms to terrorist organizations and insurgents in Iraq, while Beijing is widely reputed to have provided most of the weapons and ammunition for the epidemic killing in Sudan. At a UN conference in 2008, Chinese officials drew eye-rolls for their claim that they do not export arms to regions suffering from instability. Pakistan offered its own exaggerations, calling its small-arms-control efforts "watertight."

The U.S. said little. Its delegates showed up only for a day of the week long conference.

Connections:
Wikipedia: Darra Adamkhel
IRIN.org: Guns Out of Control: the continuing threat of small arms
A Proven, Cheap Killer of Technology: The Design Virtues of the RPG

Photos: barodeur2004, Basil Pao, William Ring, Sam Seyffert, aamir567