War in Afghanistan takes its toll on Pakistan's local weapons manufacturers

Elyas, 11, prepares the last stage for

 a Kalashnikov in a small arms factory in Darra

The local weapons industry in Pakistan's recalcitrant northwest has seen a sharp decline in the last three decades. Now, weapons from all over the world are readily available in the local market at knock down prices.




It began in the 1980s when Soviet forces invaded Afghanistan. Russian weapons, far superior in their design and performance, started appearing in local markets of Pakistan's tribal areas, and demand for locally-manufactured guns fell drastically. Post 9/11, Pakistan's local manufacturers of small weapons suffered another blow.

Symbol of manliness

Darra Adam Khel is traditionally known as a centre for the manufacture of small firearms. Most of these weapons are made at home by local people. In Pakistan's northwest, particularly in the tribal areas, there is an old tradition of bearing firearms. Carrying a gun is considered to be a symbol of bravery and manliness. People also keep them for personal safety, and to settle scores with their tribal rivals. And what would a wedding in the tribal areas be like without crowds of tribesmen firing salvoes of bullets into the air in celebration?

Members of a local citizens' militia
 in the northwest wave their rifles

Whether these weapons are legal or illegal does not matter all that much as the Pakistani government has limited authority along its border to Afghanistan. Usually, licenses to carry and manufacture such weapons are issued by government agents who enjoy a relative degree of independence from the state. In areas in which Pakistani military is in charge, licenses to manufacture weapons are issued by the central government.


But the traditional ways of life have been drastically altered by the decades of conflict in Afghanistan.

Local vs. foreign

Deutsche Welle's correspondent in Peshawar Faridullah Khan believes that the small weapons business in Pakistan suffered a huge setback in the late 1970s when Soviet weapons, especially the Kalashnikov, flooded into local tribal markets.

"The Russian weapons started coming to Pakistan via Afghanistan illegally, and the locally-manufactured weapons of Pakistan could not compete with them. Then came 2001 and Pakistan decided to join the allied forces to combat the Taliban in the war against terrorism. International weapons were illegally imported into Pakistan in large numbers, and that eventually destroyed the entire local weapons industry," said Khan. 


Pakistani gunmakers are quite good at counterfeiting the Russian AK-47



Government officials also raid local weapons shops and workshops from time to time. Apart from that, there is not much difference between the prices of illegal foreign weapons and the locally-made arms, but customers prefer the high-tech and more effective foreign-made guns over inferior local weapons. As a consequence local gunmakers are forced to look for other sources of income.

Alternative livelihood

Jamal Afridi, who lives in Darra Adam Khel, tried his hand at weapons-making. He told Deutsche Welle that most of the local weapons producers had changed their jobs in recent years.

"I know the people who used to be in this profession. Some have completely changed their occupation. Some are driving taxis, some have opened shops. Those who do not find an alternative business, or who do not possess any other skill, are still doing the same work. Most of these people are now making guns for the government-run weapon industries on commission," said Afridi.

The government of Pakistan has given jobs to the local arms manufacturers in the Wah Military Complex and other state-run industries that produce weapons for the Pakistan Army and other paramilitary forces. It is not surprising that the protracted war in Afghanistan and Pakistan's tribal areas has also caused an increase in unemployment in these areas, and a lot of the gunmakers have been recruited by the Taliban. However, DW correspondent Faridullah Khan says that the Taliban rely more on foreign weaponry than locally made weapons. These days, Pakistani gun-makers are also counterfeiting Russian and American weapons. They are quite good at this, and some people think that it is hard to differentiate between the foreign and locally-manufactured guns. Jamal Afridi says it is a natural talent of the Pashtuns, and they are extremely good in the craft of weapons-making.

"Make it legal"

Unemployment is driving some gunmakers to Taliban militants

Jamal Afridi says the government should make the business of weapons-making legal so it can keep track of things. He also wants the government to curb the import of illegal firearms.


"Unemployment is the major reason behind criminal activity. The government should give licences to small weapons producers so that they can earn money legally and the government will also get some revenue out of it. In foreign countries too, weapons are made and sold, but the government issues licences to these shops and to people who buy them."

He says a lack of alternative ways of earning money will only lead to a higher crime rate, as people will be forced to look for illegal ways to sustain their livelihood.

France fully prepared to take extreme measures against terrorism

Many countries of the world have to deal with terrorism. France is one of them. France experienced terrorism for the first time after 1789, during the French Revolution. The country suffered from terrorism a lot after WWII as well.

French anti-terror services had to work in four different directions: ultra-rightists, ultra-leftists, separatists and Islamists. Islamist terror began to develop speedily during the years of the Algerian war. Algerian guerrillas attacked a number of important defense objects on the territory of France.

France has been struggling against leftist and rightist terrorist since the beginning of the 1960s. However, it was Islamists who posed the biggest threat to France. They conducted their terror attacks during the eighties and the nineties. In 1994, Algerian terrorists seized a passenger jetliner, which they planned to crash on the Eiffel Tower.

Over 3,500 people have been killed in terrorist attacks in France since 1974. Islamists conducted nearly ten large terrorist acts in the country, in which nine people were killed and 160 injured. The bloodiest act of terror was conducted in Paris on July 25, 1995, on Saint Michel station of the city subway. Seven were killed and 84 were injured in the blast.

France defeated Islamists during 1997-1998, although the struggle against terrorism in the country still continues. French special services conducted a series of massive preventive arrests in December 2002. Dozens of members of Islamist organizations planned to explode the Russian Embassy in Paris and the buildings of other Russian organizations in the country. The attacks were supposed to be conducted to take revenge on Russia for the death of warlord Khattab in Chechnya and especially for the extermination of 40 terrorists during the hostage crisis in the Moscow music theater.

French anti-terrorist services are structured strictly, with each department executing their own tasks. One should name Division Nationale Anti-Terroriste - DNAT, DST counterintelligence service, Gendarmerie, DGSE external intelligence service, Police Judiciaire (the court police, which specializes in detecting authors of crimes), and DCPG - the central administration of the court police, which cuts the funding of terrorist activities.

France gradually developed the adequate legal base, which allowed the country to react effectively to challenges of terrorism. In 1963, France set up a semi-military court structure Le Cour de surete de l'Etat (State Security Court), which allowed to punish terrorists without a backward glance on liberal laws.

All terrorist cases in the country are tried in Paris only, which gives the authorities an opportunity to keep their finger on the pulse and avoid even chances of not guilty verdicts for terrorists.

French law-enforcement agencies react to terrorist attacks in other countries too. After the attacks in Britain, the French government developed the special anti-terrorist package which stipulated tougher control over phone calls and email messages.

When serving as Interior Ministry, Nicolas Sarkozy, the sitting President of France, repeatedly promoted the policies of zero tolerance against everyone who is involved in terrorist activities either fully, partially, or just slightly.

To put it in a nutshell, the French are prepared to use extreme, unpopular and even doubtful measures against terrorists. They will not pay attention to external influences and pressure. For example, many criticized the French government after it ordered to remove garbage cans from the streets of Paris in the middle of the 1990s. That was the period of debauchery of Arab terrorism in the country, and terrorists would often leave bombs in garbage cans. Paris became dirtier, but the decision complicated terrorists' actions.

France still remembers the threat voiced in 1974 by Algeria's then-President Houari Boumediene: "One day, millions of men will leave the Southern Hemisphere to go to the Northern Hemisphere. And they will not go there as friends. Because they will go there to conquer it. And they will conquer it with their sons. The wombs of our women will give us victory."

Russia and France finalize Mistral talks

France and Russia have finalized the talks about the construction of Mistral helicopter carriers for Russia. The agreement between the two countries was signed on January 25 in France's Saint-Nazaire. Experts already said that France's readiness to deliver Mistrals to Russia was a political signal meaning that France perceives Russia as a partner.
The agreement was signed by French Defense Minister Allain Juppe and Russian Vice Prime Minister Igor Sechin, in the presence of French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The ceremony was held at STX enterprise, the maker of Mistrals.


It was earlier reported that Russia would subsequently be able to build more than two Mistral helicopter carriers at domestic shipyards. This is one of the visible benefits of the deal. After the construction of two Mistrals in France, Russia will obtain the technologies to build other vessels single-handedly. Both Russian and French officials describe the agreement as mutually beneficial.

Russia's Deputy Defense Minister Vladimir Popovkin said in the autumn of 2010 that the Defense Ministry of the Russian Federation had announced the tender to purchase universal helicopter carriers for the Russian Navy. Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said that Russia was going to invite both domestic and foreign companies for the tender.

The tender was eventually won by France's DCNS. The company received the contract for the construction of two helicopter carriers.

A Mistral helicopter carrier costs approximately 400-500 million euros. The first vessel will be built at STX France shipyard in partnership with DCNS (France). France currently has two vessels of the type - Mistral and Tonnerre. In Russia, the vessels will be built on Kotlin Island in St. Petersburg.

Russia may begin the construction of Mistral-type vessels after 2014.

A Mistral class ship is capable of transporting and deploying 16 NH90 or Tigre helicopters, four landing barges, up to 70 vehicles including 13 Leclerc tanks, or a 40-strong Leclerc tank battalion, and 450 soldiers. The ships are equipped with a 69-bed hospital, and are capable of serving as part of a NATO Response Force, or with United Nations or European Union peace-keeping forces.

Will Russia be able to defend Kuril Islands if Japan attacks?

Anti-Russian hysteria continues in Japan. On February 7, Japanese revanchists who gathered at the walls of the Russian Embassy in Tokyo demanded that Russia returns four Kuril Islands, and abused the Russian national flag in the process. The police did not intervene in the proceedings, acting as interested spectators.
Perhaps the far-right were inspired by Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who spoke on the same day with an official address in which he called the recent visit of Dmitry Medvedev to the Southern Kuriles "inexcusable rudeness".

The next day, February 8, the Russian Embassy received a letter with a bullet and a note from which the Russian diplomats learned that the "northern territories is a Japanese land".

Moscow's position boils down to the fact that four Kuril Islands, whose ownership is disputed by the Japanese, belong to Russia as the successor to the USSR following World War II.

So far the battle for the Southern Kurils is diplomatic. But who knows what would the Japanese do when it becomes clear that their diplomatic efforts are futile? The history has precedents where the ownership of certain territories was disputed at a battlefield.

The latest example of this kind is directly related to Russia - the actions of Georgia in August of 2008 in South Ossetia. Most of the experts did not consider a possibility of an attack. Until the last minute most of them were confident that the little Georgia will not risk fighting with a much stronger Russia. However, as the experience shows, Saakashvili who dreamt of the "return of the historic Georgian territories," was not even afraid of Russian nuclear weapons.

Japan is a much more formidable opponent in all respects. Of course, we can assume that the Japanese leaders, in contrast to Georgia, are much saner and that the economic relationship between Japan and Russia will not allow the conflict flare up. However, economics does not always dominate politics. As evident from history, sometimes the political attitudes may outweigh the economic benefits.

The behavior of the Japanese leadership cannot but cause concern. In 2007, then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said that it was time to get away from the postwar regime and give the army due respect. In other words, Japan has been steadily reviving the "fighting spirit of the nation" to return to the club of the world powers.

Military spending in Japan is also growing. In 2010 the country ranked fifth in the world in terms of military spending (approximately 44.3 billion dollars annually), outrunning Germany and conceding only to the U.S. (600 billion), China (81.4 billion dollars), the UK (48.8 billion dollars) and France (45 billion dollars). Most likely, considering that the latter are significantly reducing their military budgets, in 2011 Japan could get to the third place in the world and would compete with China for the second. Russia is far behind Japan in terms of these indicators.

In this regard, in recent years the Japanese have been actively building up their offensive potential. It now has an entire set of attributes of superpower, including military preparedness. For example, Japan has aircraft carriers, a modern missile defense system, and powerful air forces of "self-defense".

Overall, the Japanese self-defense forces, not counting civil employees, amount to 240,000 people and are among the most powerful in the region. This is substantially contributed by regular updates of military equipment. A specific role is given to the Navy that includes over 250 combat ships, support ships and boats.

In addition, the Navy has 40 destroyers, of which eight are guided missile defense destroyers capable of hitting targets at long range. The Japanese naval forces continue to grow, including amphibious.

Among them there are four (according to other reports, five) "flagship" ships that are helicopter carriers. They perform both the role of aircraft carriers and amphibious units. Moreover, helicopter destroyer of the Hyuga class introduced in 2009, according to the general opinion of military experts, is a light aircraft carrier, which can be rapidly converted to receive military aircraft.

It was called a destroyer only to avoid postwar restrictions on the ability to have ships of this class. In the coming years two more ships of this class with a displacement of 19,500 tons and capable of accommodating every 14 helicopters, four thousand soldiers and 50 trucks will be introduced.

Currently there are five Japanese small and medium landing ships, as well as at least eight landing crafts, with which they can land troops in heavy weather and natural conditions. The landing crafts alone can land up to 36 armored vehicles, or more than 4.2 thousand marines at a time. In addition, the Japanese leaders do not rule out future significant increase in the number of amphibious ships and boats.

Furthermore, government officials declare their intention to revive full-fledged Marines, creating "mobile assault units," designed to capture the coastal strip of the probable enemy.

That is, Japan has been actively building up its strike group designed to conduct amphibious operations. Is Russia ready for the Japanese that once had lost all hope of returning "native Japanese territories," to take action?

Konstantin Sivkov, senior vice president of the Academy of Geopolitical Issues, answered this question for Pravda.ru.

"Of course, when we try to imagine a scenario of conflict with Japan, we should take into account the fact that it is not limited to amphibious operation in the Southern Kuril Islands," the expert believes. "Japanese revenge-seekers who are raising their head increasingly more must understand that in case of military adventurism on their part they will have to deal with Russia on the vast theater of operations, from Vladivostok to the Kuril chain, and possibly up to Kamchatka. They surpass Russia both at sea and in the air at this point. Although on our side we have strategic aircrafts unavailable in Japan. Thus, our missiles can be guaranteed to hit targets within a radius of 1500-2000 kilometers.

With regard to nuclear weapons, in a conventional conflict, without the use of weapons of mass destruction, we simply will not use it, and we do not hope that it can stop the aggressor.

Until recently there was a rather strong Russian unit in the conflict zone, including an artillery division, designed precisely to reflect a probable enemy assault. However, in 1990, our Kuril group significantly deteriorated in the general context of weakening of Russian defenses. In particular, a significant portion of the park was comprised of obsolete armored vehicles T-55. Or there is something else - while the Japanese are increasing their military preparedness, we are only just beginning to wonder out loud: "Should we send S-300 to the Kuriles? It says a lot.

In case of an attack of a potential enemy, our Kurile unit, including the southern islands, is guaranteed to hold out for a day or two. Maximum - three or four days. During this time we must ensure the delivery of reinforcement, otherwise the outcome of the likely conflict may not be very pleasant.

It is important that the transport infrastructure connecting the archipelago with the mainland leaves much to be desired. In recent years, observing the Japanese to increase their offensive force, we also expressed some interest in the defense of the Kuril Islands and started building new and reconstruct old airfields.

In the foreseeable future, the Japanese are unlikely to hold military adventure. However, this cannot be guaranteed further on, especially if we are at war with some third country and are not able to pay due attention to the Far East direction".

There has been a similar precedent in history. In 1855, using the fact that Russia was involved in the Crimean War, the Japanese pushed for a favorable agreement on the South Kuriles. Not wanting to conflict with Japan, Russia gave them four islands, which the Japanese are not willing to forget.

At one time the notorious Bismarck spoke of possible opponents: "I'm not interested in their intentions, I'm interested in their capabilities." The capabilities of the Japanese are getting larger.