Kalashnikov automatic rifles -- used by the train gunman and Islamist terrorists who killed 17 people in Paris in January -- and anti-tank missiles are now obtainable in France. Many were smuggled in from the former Yugoslavia after the Balkan wars in the 1990s. More weapons have come in from Libya, the sources said, adding that organised crime and terrorist groups were working together to procure them.
“We don’t know what happened to the arms we (France) to Libyan rebels. It’s worrying,” the source said.
In the chaos following the fall of the Libyan dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, French officials described the north African country as an “open-air arms market”. In 2011, France admitted to sending “light weapons” to Libyan rebels in 2011, but French media reported that consignments of heavier arms, including European-made Milan anti-tank missiles were also sent.
There were fears that Isil, al-Qaeda and other Islamist groups were procuring heavy weapons from the stocks of Gaddafi’s former army, and that rebel groups were losing control of their own arms