Perspective: Illegal weapons trading burgeoning in Baghdad

Sporting a beige jacket, starched pink shirt and polished shoes, Haider looks like any other young businessman about town, not a sly gunrunner who wheels and deals in Iraq's burgeoning arms trade.

Yet with the country sucked into sectarian warfare and the classic laws of the marketplace clicking into gear, traders like Haider - not his real name - are making a highly-illegal killing.

He admits prices have "quadrupled since spring" after the fuse on Iraq's sectarian powder keg was lit by Sunni extremists, who demolished a revered Shiite shrine in the northern city of Samarra.

"Sales have shot up spectacularly since Samarra," explains Haider.

The blast plunged Iraq into a vicious cycle of bloodletting between Sunni and Shiite fighters that litters the country with 100 bodies a day.

"Shiites went on the attack and asked for weapons. Sunni groups also wanted to arm. Shiite militias and armed Sunni groups are the main buyers," says the unrepentant wholesaler.

Read the rest at the Middle East Times