Those Guns Look Familiar

By Nadia Mustafa

Many soldiers in the main force of Haitian rebels attempting to overthrow President Jean-Bertrand Aristide are armed with American M-1 and M-14 rifles given to Haiti in the 1980s. The turncoat militia--the Artibonite Resistance Front, formerly known as Aristide's loyal Cannibal Army--is hardly the first foreign military force to get its hands on a stockpile of U.S. weapons. Here are some conflicts of the past few years that the U.S. has unwittingly armed. --By Nadia Mustafa

TURKEY

Turks got 100 Black Hawk and Cobra helicopters from the U.S. before Gulf War I and used them against the Kurds.

AFGHANISTAN

In the 1980s anti-Soviet mujahedin got Stinger missiles and Chinese-made AK-47s, later used by the anti-U.S. Taliban.

COLOMBIA

M-16s that the U.S. gave to the Colombian army in the 1990s to combat drug trafficking are now in the hands of terrorists engaged in human-rights abuses.

NICARAGUA

American arms transferred to anti-Sandinista contras in the '80s are being used by active death squads across Central America.