Weapon Used in November 13 Paris Attacks Came From CIA-linked Arms Dealer
By Alex Lantier
At least one of the guns used in the November 13 terror attacks in Paris was purchased by Century International Arms and then re-exported to Europe. One of the largest arms dealers in the United States, Century Arms has close ties to the CIA and has faced charges in America and Europe of involvement in illegal arms deals.
The weapon, an M92 semiautomatic pistol, was produced at the Zastava arms factory in Kragujevac, Serbia. Last week, factory manager Milojko Brzakovic told AP he had checked its records on seven weapons that it manufactured that were used in the Paris attacks. It delivered several of the weapons inside Yugoslavia before that country dissolved amid capitalist restoration and civil war in the 1990s, but it delivered the pistol in May 2013 to Century Arms, based in Delray Beach, Florida.
Century Arms officials refused Palm Beach Post reporters’ requests for comment, and it remains unclear how the M92 pistol was re-exported to Europe. Century Arms required US government approval to legally import the firearm into the United States, however, and whoever re-exported it to Europe would have had to submit a request to the US State Department in order to do so legally.
These reports further undermine the official presentation of the Paris attacks by governments, media, and pro-imperialist “left” parties. They insisted that the attacks were an act of Islamist terror in which the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) alone was involved and bore full responsibility.
This presentation was always a political fraud, insofar as the NATO powers were undoubtedly politically implicated. The attacks were led by Islamist fighters trained in Syria—where the CIA, European intelligence and Persian Gulf oil sheikdoms have given financial and military backing to such Islamist forces to topple President Bashar al-Assad. Though placed on watch lists and monitored by intelligence services, these fighters were somehow allowed to prepare highly complex, coordinated attacks in Paris.
