Citizens keeping and bearing arms in Iraq?

[Weimadog]

With all the reports of "farmers" and other non-military Iraqis carrying AKs, I wonder if their government keeps a control over those weapons. It would seem that a dictator would not allow his subjucts to have weapons, but it looks like he does.

I betcha those are full auto AKs

Does anybody here know about the commoners access to weapons on Iraq?

Weimadog

 

[CampX]

About 2 months ago I watched the CBC interview with Tariq Aziz, the Iraqi Prime Minister, and he was saying how they were issuing weapons to the populace to defend against an American invasion. Does this sound as somewhat different to the point of view from the American side, where if Saddam was so afraid of an internal power struggle, he would have either taken away ALL guns from the general population, or not issued them out in the face of American aggression? So yes, I do believe the general population does have access to firearms. "General" may mean only those people who are supporters of his rule, though....

 

[Telperion]

Saddam is incredibly paranoid, so I can't imagine gun ownership being completely unregulated. I imagine that prior to recent events, if Joe Iraqi walked around Baghdad with a rifle slung on his back, he would be arrested, imprisoned, or killed by Republican Guard or whatever gestapo they have there.

Having a civilian militia is a good thing, though maybe not a good thing for our troops in this particular situation. Saddam Hussein or no, we are invading their country, so we ought to expect some irregular resistance. I hope our soldiers can lend assistance to those who have rebelled against Saddam, as those who rebelled after the first war were crushed when we didn't support them.

 

[Hal]

Ever notice in a lot of those pictures of the *armed Iraqi citizens* that their AKs are misssing a magazine?

 

[geekay]

It seems to depend on religious and/or tribal affiliations. Lots of civilian in Bagdad appear; on TV, to have "near state of the art " weapons but on the other hand the residents of Basra seem to be relatively unarmed and unable to resist the pro-Saddam element. The rulers are rurhless in their control of the general populous not of the same ethnic background as themselves so I am convinced the majority of Iraqis do NOT have ready access to weapons, or at least the same weapons.

 

[fallingblock]

The Baath party members......

and most of the urban Sunni population in Baghdad are considered 'trustworthy' to have military arms. The Shi'ite
population of Basra and the south, and the Kurds in the north, are not permitted to possess military weapons. These latter two groups have them anyway, in many cases, because they fear Saddam, not because they support him

 

[bountyhunter]

There is a "citizen" brigade caled the Fettehin (sp?) which is estimated to be between 50k and 100k strong who are fanatically loyal to saddam. many are from his home province. This group answers only to Saddam and do not report to the regular military or even the Republican Guard. They are civilains and do not wear uniforms, so they are not easy to spot. They have been the ones doing the ambushes and "fake surrenders". This thing is starting to sound so much like Nam I'm getting a 40 year flashback.