AK-47: The Weapon that Changed the Face of War (14 page)
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Authors: Larry Kahaner
BOOK: AK-47: The Weapon that Changed the Face of War
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This operation has been studied by many Western military officials not only because of its surgical precision but because of the child soldiers involved. The incident set a new standard for Western military behavior. Now soldiers are trained and indoctrinated to consider children as legitimate targets during combat situations.
Although many countries have employed child soldiers, Sierra Leone is often the center of discussion because of its prominence during the civil war that officially lasted from 1991 to 2001. As many as 80 percent of all combatants were between seven and fourteen. In addition, unlike other conflicts, children were recruited—often by abduction and forcible service—early on, rather than being brought in later to bolster dwindling adult forces. The number of child soldiers used by all sides, including government forces, was close to ten thousand, making them the majority of fighters.
Nobody knows the actual number of people killed in Sierra Leone—the violence continues—but the United Nations estimates the number at between fifty thousand and seventy-five thousand, with as many as one hundred thousand people mutilated. More than a million people, a third of the population, became refugees. The economy is still in ruins. The country’s already feeble infrastructure has been destroyed, and the United Nations now considers Sierra Leone one of the poorest nations in the world.
The extent of the damage still is unfolding, made public through testimony during a war crimes trial, which began in March 2004 in Sierra Leone. The court is looking only at crimes committed after the November 30, 1996, Abidjan Accord between the government and rebels. So far, more than a dozen people have been indicted. RUF leader Sankoh died of a stroke in 2003, while Taylor, also indicted, sought safe haven in Nigeria and in early 2006 was extradited to Liberia to face war-crime charges. Gadhafi has been charged as a coconspirator.
Court testimony has stunned the world. One witness, a middle-aged woman identified only as TF-1196, said rebels used machetes to hack her husband’s limbs off before he died. Then a rebel “young enough to be her child” raped her. She showed the court the hacked-off ends of her arms to illustrate why she could not sign court documents.
Child soldiers relayed how they called rebel leader Foday Sankoh “Pappy,” and how he gave them AKs, marijuana, cocaine, and amphetamines to bolster their courage and spur them to kill and maim in the most brutal ways their young minds could imagine.
One child, identified as TF-1199, was twelve when rebels abducted him in 1998. He testified that he was taught how to fire an AK, smoke marijuana, and rape. He raped a fifteen-year-old girl presented to him after his commander threatened to kill him if he did not do what he was told.
REPORTS FROM THE WAR CRIMES court showed how wrong the Western world had been to focus on larger weapons and dismiss the importance to world security of small arms, especially the AK. During the proceedings, court documents revealed that Taylor sold conflict diamonds to al-Qaeda operatives that may have been used to finance the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
Diamonds and other gemstones are perfect for moving wealth around; they are small, hold their value, are universally acceptable as barter, don’t set off airport metal detectors, and can easily be converted to cash. Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and the Northern Alliance have a history of exploiting gemstones, such as those found in Afghanistan’s emerald fields.
They transferred this gem-selling acumen to Africa. Al-Qaeda reportedly operated in West Africa from 1998 and maintained a continuous presence through 2002, according to the office of war crimes prosecutor Dave Crane. Weak and corrupt governments made West Africa an ideal choice for terrorist bases. In the case of Liberia, Taylor ran the country as his own criminal enterprise. Because of his status as a legitimate government leader, he issued visas and passports, and offered protection to anyone within his country’s borders—for a fee. For example, he issued airplane registrations to arms dealer Victor Bout, who often took payment in diamonds for weapons.
Beginning in January 2001, al-Qaeda increased their purchases of diamonds, and continued until just before the September 11 attacks. According to a Belgian police report, the terrorist group purchased about $20 million worth of RUF diamonds during the fourteen months prior to 9/11. “The evidence suggests a rapid, large scale value transfer operation that allowed the terrorist group to move money out of traceable financial structures into untraceable commodities,” Douglas Farah, author of
Blood from Stones
, told Congress during his February 2005 testimony.
Blood from Stones
, told Congress during his February 2005 testimony.
During the upheavals in Liberia and Sierra Leone, the United States and other Western nations dismissed Taylor’s activities—especially his dealings in diamonds and small arms—because they were not considered a direct threat to their security. With the attacks of 9/11, this has proven a dangerous assumption.
Just as Afghanistan and Pakistan were the arms bazaar of the Middle East, Liberia and Sierra Leone became the nexus of small-arms smuggling in Africa from the mid-1980s to the present day. But the scourge of AKs did not stop in these West African nations. Cheap and plentiful small arms plagued the people of Mozambique, Rwanda, Somalia, Congo, and South Africa, among others. Indeed, from 1990 through 2000, Africa experienced more than a hundred conflicts, twice the number of previous decades, fueled mainly by AKs. In a continent where the price of an AK was often less than ten dollars, it became not only a weapon, but a way to make a living through criminal behavior and barter as in Liberia and Sierra Leone.
In Somalia, the AK played a pivotal role in that country’s civil war and was at the root of unsuccessful efforts by the United Nations and U.S. forces to bring peace there.
IN 1992, SOMALIA WAS in the midst of a civil war that, coupled with a drought, brought widespread famine and disease. With the country in chaos and no single government emerging to take charge, a multinational military force under control of the United Nations in 1993 began humanitarian efforts to relieve hunger and aid displaced people. These troops’ efforts met with mixed results. Assaults directed against them often prevented food and water from reaching those in need.
As violence escalated, several areas of the country seceded and formed their own independent states. One warlord in particular, General Mohammed Farrah Aidid, was not afraid to engage UN troops, killing soldiers from Pakistan, the United States, and elsewhere with bombs and small-arms fire.
On October 3, 1993, in the hope of capturing leaders of Aidid’s rebel forces, U.S. Army Special Forces were deploying troops in Mogadishu when the assault force was fired upon. Two UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters were shot down by rocket-propelled grenades and three others were disabled.
Most of the original assault force went to the first crash site, where about ninety Rangers found themselves under siege, mainly from massive small-arms fire, which kept them pinned down in the urban setting. They were stuck for the night while rebels and even Somali citizens angry at the United States and armed with AKs kept the GIs trapped. At the second crash site, two soldiers, dropped by helicopter to protect downed pilot Mike Durant from a street mob, were killed. Durant was taken hostage. By the next morning, the battle ended as reinforcements from the 10th Mountain Division and troops from Pakistan and Malaysia fought their way in and evacuated the remaining U.S. soldiers amid heavy gunfire and mobs firing AKs.
In the end, eighteen American soldiers were killed in action and seventy-nine sustained injuries. One Malaysian soldier was killed and seven injured. The Pakistanis suffered two injuries. Anywhere from three hundred to a thousand Somalis died, according to Pentagon estimates.
The incident, one of the most dramatic urban encounters endured by U.S. military forces, was chronicled in the popular book and movie entitled
Black Hawk Down
. The event’s significance went far beyond Hollywood, however. Although U.S. forces won the battle, they did not complete their mission: to provide continued food and medical supplies to Somalians. To be sure, the efforts did save lives, perhaps as many as two hundred thousand people, but after seeing dead American soldiers dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, as well as footage from the battle itself, the Clinton administration lost its will for the peacekeeping action in Somalia. In March 1994, U.S. public opinion turned against keeping troops in the war-torn nation, and they were brought home. The United Nations, no longer able to count on the more than twenty thousand American troops, also pulled out as the situation deteriorated. Current conditions remain unsettled as Somalia has since split into several countries seeking international recognition. Warlords and their militias continue to engage in low-level wars fueled by cheap small arms, mainly AKs.
Black Hawk Down
. The event’s significance went far beyond Hollywood, however. Although U.S. forces won the battle, they did not complete their mission: to provide continued food and medical supplies to Somalians. To be sure, the efforts did save lives, perhaps as many as two hundred thousand people, but after seeing dead American soldiers dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, as well as footage from the battle itself, the Clinton administration lost its will for the peacekeeping action in Somalia. In March 1994, U.S. public opinion turned against keeping troops in the war-torn nation, and they were brought home. The United Nations, no longer able to count on the more than twenty thousand American troops, also pulled out as the situation deteriorated. Current conditions remain unsettled as Somalia has since split into several countries seeking international recognition. Warlords and their militias continue to engage in low-level wars fueled by cheap small arms, mainly AKs.
Small-arms attacks often thwarted UN humanitarian efforts. In one incident in 2000, a small single-engine plane was fired upon by AKs, leading to the curtailment of aid to Kismayo in Southwest Somalia. This scene has been repeated in other areas since then.
Not only did the experience in Somalia fuel the debate over using U.S. forces in areas in which U.S. security was not directly threatened, but it also spurred Pentagon planners to think more about how well-trained American troops outfitted with the latest high-tech weaponry can win against poorly trained militia armed with simple, low-tech automatic rifles, especially in urban settings.
The battle of Mogadishu brought to the foreground the growing debate about “asymmetric warfare.” Although no single definition of the phrase exists, most military planners describe it as war between two dissimilar forces using vastly differing weapons and employing vastly different doctrines. On the surface, it would seem that the force with the best technology and best weapons would win quickly and decisively, but this is not always the case.
This was clearly the situation in Mogadishu. Commenting on
Black Hawk Down
, veteran BBC correspondent Yusuf Hassan noted, “It was sort of portraying the Americans as heroes, when in fact they had
all
the technology. It was a high-tech war—against people who only had AK-47 rifles.” (They also had RPGs.) Since Mogadishu, the Marine Corps has instituted its Urban Warrior Program, one facet being the familiarization of troops with the AK. This is the weapon they will face most in future conflicts.
Black Hawk Down
, veteran BBC correspondent Yusuf Hassan noted, “It was sort of portraying the Americans as heroes, when in fact they had
all
the technology. It was a high-tech war—against people who only had AK-47 rifles.” (They also had RPGs.) Since Mogadishu, the Marine Corps has instituted its Urban Warrior Program, one facet being the familiarization of troops with the AK. This is the weapon they will face most in future conflicts.
In Somalia, as in many areas of the world, the price of an AK can be an indication of social stability. In a sign of optimism, the price in Mogadishu of an AK dropped from $700 to between $300 and $400 after the Somali parliament in October 2004 elected Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed president. Although fighting continued among the other self-proclaimed independent areas of Puntland and Somaliland over disputed territories, and in Somalia itself, there was hope that the new president would bring stability to the region. In response, the perceived need for people to arm themselves dropped, bringing a subsequent drop in price of the AK.
Unfortunately, the price steadily rose as Ahmed and his prime minister, Ali Mohammed Ghedi, remained in Nairobi, Kenya, where they were inaugurated under the security of that country’s military and have lived ever since, running the government from exile.
THE SCOURGE OF LOW-COST AKS also spread to Rwanda as weapons poured in, fueling that country’s genocide in 1994, a systematic horror that had not been seen since the “Killing Fields” of Cambodia in the 1970s.
The animosity between the Hutu majority and the Tutsis had been ongoing since before the country was a German colony, which was ceded to Belgium after World War I. A Tutsi monarchy ruled the country until 1959, when a Hutu uprising forced the Tutsis from power. In the process, thousands of Tutsis were killed and many foreigners, especially Belgians, were driven from the country. The Hutus, now in power, with sponsorship from France, engaged in large-scale murders of Tutsis from 1959 to 1966, during which time between 20,000 and 100,000 Tutsi were killed and about 150,000 fled to neighboring countries including Burundi, Uganda, Zaire, and Tanzania. In these other countries, Hutu and Tutsi conflicts spilled over. For example, in 1972, Hutus attacked Tutsis in southern Burundi and in counterattacks more than 80,000 Hutus were killed.
Kalashnikovs poured into Rwanda from Russia, Romania, Bulgaria, and other Warsaw Pact countries whose cash-strapped governments were eager to sell weapons to both sides. The Rwandan Popular Front (RFP), which operated from camps in Uganda and Tanzania and was predominately composed of Tutsis, mainly carried AKs from Romania. The Rwandan Armed Forces (FAR) also carried AKs as their weapon of choice.
Although large-scale genocide had already occurred in sporadic bursts, the worst was yet to come. On April 6, 1994, a Mystère Falcon jet carrying the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi was shot down, most likely by those who wanted to stop the peace process following the signing the previous August of the Arusha Accords. Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana, under heavy pressure from the United States, had begun to implement the accords, which would allow for the return of Tutsi refugees and power sharing between the Hutus and Tutsis.
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