◆ SpookStack

Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00788R000100330001-5 SPECIAL EDITION -- TERRORISM -- 26 JUNE 1984 SOLDIER OF FORTUNE July 1984 Pages 36-37 SOF FEATURE TOOLS OF TERROR SOF’s Guide by Bill Guthrie EAR is the first weapon, but after that guns are the tools by which terrorists move nations and men to act against their wills. Firearms of ‘‘liberation’’ organiza- tions can be defined by necessity and taste (simple weapons are best — since many of the grunts in a terrorist ‘‘army’’ are qual- ified more by zeal than by experience — and certain weapons have emotional appeal) but the guns found most often are the guns that are available. The distinctive banana-magazined out- line of the Kalashnikov is the symbol of revolution even to those who have no idea what an AK-47 is. Simple, rugged, relatively inexpensive and manufactured from Egypt to China, the AK may be the greatest small-arms contri- butor to world destabilization. Some analysts believe total production of AKs and AK variants must be near 30 mil- lion. The older USSR-made AK-47, the newer AKM and the Chinese Type 56 are most numerous in terrorist weapons caches, but East German, Polish, Hungarian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Yugoslavian, and North Korean versions can be found. Ml6s are valued by many armies for mechanical simplicity, low recoil, accura- cy, lightness, compactness and ease of training. All of these characteristics make them fine weapons for amateur and profes- sional killers. Colt claims that about five million M16s have been made in the United States and by licensees in the Philippines and South Korea, but there may be political reasons for not revealing a larger figure. Unofficial esti- mates of total production are double official figures. Our abandonment of about a mil- lion Ml6s in Southeast Asia has made a great contribution to the world terrorist to Underground Weaponry arsenal. Vietnam-issue '16s have been used in terrorist acts and communist insurrec- tions from neighboring Cambodia, Burma and Thailand to Central America. The Irish Republican Army has received M16s from communist sympathizers, and IRA buyers have been in Vietnam to purchase U.S.- made arms and ammo from our old ene- mies. The first rifle issued to use the AK's M1943 7.62x39mm cartridge was the SKS. Strong and simple, production figures are not available, but Pete Kokalis figures that 10 million must have been made. SKSs lack selective-fire capability, and are relatively unsuited to urban and jungle fighting. But they were made in East Germany, Yugo- slavia, the Soviet Union, China and North Korea and are still found wherever com- munists are killing people. Some have called the U.S. M2 carbine the original assault rifle. The M2 fired an intermediate round, was light and compact with 30-round magazines and it featured selective fire. Official production figures are in the 6,000,000 range and World War II spread them over most of the globe. Semi- auto M1s and full-auto M2 and M3 carbines have been taken from basements and bodies of terrorists from Ireland to Africa and from Vietnam to South America. Since terrorist organizations do not have the same supply networks as an army, mem- bers of the same group may have different weapons. Czech vz.58 assault rifles are a good example. The Model 58 is visually similar but mechanically different from the AK, and parts are not interchangeable. It has the additional inconvenience of the capability of being misassembled, with potentially disastrous results. Still, the weapon is robust, accurate, and mainly well-designed. Since it is something different, some people like it for that reason alone. One of the terrorist cells of the Japanese Red Army named itself for the Czech rifle. Submachine guns and machine pistols are light, small and lethal. Many millions of them have been made since World War I, and by no means are all of them accounted for by either Free World or communist states that made them. All makes appear in weapons Captured from terrorists, from the latest UZI to the oldest Thompson or the most delapidated PPSh-41. For power, compactness and shock value, hardly anything short of C-4 beats the MAC-10 in .45 ACP or 9mm Parabellum. Expensive on the open market and virtually non-rebuildable, the Ingram’s high rate of fire (1200 rpm in .45) and smal] size make hit probability low at ranges beyond toe-to- toe. All that aside, it is available with an excellent Sionics silencer, is unbelievably concealable, and is very hard to argue with at very close ranges. Numbers are hard to get, since covert services are the gov- ernmental agencies that buy them and the manufacturing history is Byzantine. But they’ ve been produced in some numbers for the last 17 years, were originally cheaply and easily available to civilian buyers, and have been purchased by more than 20 gov- ernments, including Yugoslavia. The real sex-appeal weapon for enemies of order is the Czech Skorpion machine pistol. The Red Brigades of Italy are parti- cularly fond of this 2.8-pound, 10.6-inch- long, folding-wire-stocked select-fire weapon. Available in .32 ACP (most com- monly), .380 ACP, 9mm Makarov and 9mm Parabellum, the Skorpion is relatively controllable, highly portable and reliable. Originally designed as a police and vehicle- crew weapon, Omnipol (the Czech sales organization) has found good foreign mar- kets, so the Skorpion is available all over Africa and throughout much of Europe. Common handguns are most popular for terrorist operations. Pope John Paul II was shot with a Browning Hi-Power 9mm, and Walther auto-pistols are so popular (and illegally available) in Europe the Red Bri- gades have been nicknamed ‘‘P-38ers.’* Compact .38 Special S&W revolvers are also popular. The world’s terrorists have found other means when they didn’t have guns — plasti- que in France in the ’40s and industrial dynamite in Peru today — but firearms re- main their most important tools. Other weapons, such as nuclear devices or toxins, might be more ideally suited for terrorist operations, but guns are compact, inexpen- sive, require little training or experience for basic use and are available all over the world, The great numbers of military weapons and the lack of control over disper- sion in times of war define what firearms are available to terrorists. But whatever guns are found and wherever they are used, they are implements of slavery in the hands of terrorists as they are tools of freedom in the hands of informed citizens. ® Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : ci Rpp96-00788R000100330001-5