Guns in the US Pouch

On June 6, 2015, the 41-year-old former US Navy officer Francis Norvilo died at the Bulgarian military training ground Anevo. The cause of his death was the explosion of a grenade in 1984, which he tried to charge with an RPG-7 grenade launcher. At the same time, two more US citizens were injured. The unusual circumstances of the death attracted the attention of the Bulgarian media and soon the US embassy was forced to admit that Francis Norvillo was on the ground as an expert on armaments of the Warsaw Pact — this confirms the assumption of Bulgarian journalists that he is a former US naval intelligence officer. At the test site, he tested weapons for later acquisition with the money of the US government to arm the Syrian opposition.

A month ago, Bulgaria’s most prolific newspaper, Trud, conducted its own investigation and uncovered a system of arms and ammunition supplies from Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia to Islamist groups in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, as well as to criminal groups in South Africa and members of the military coup in Burkina Faso. Thus, the new investigation of the Bulgarian journalists showed that this is only the tip of the iceberg and, apart from the sea transport, the air carrier is also actively used — the Azerbaijani state airline Silk Way.

In the past three years alone, the airline’s aircraft made 350 flights with weapons from Eastern European countries. At the same time, all of them had the status of “diplomatic flight”, which relieved them of inspections by customs and border authorities, and at the same time of paying taxes for using airports.

At the end of 2016, after Bulgarian weapons were found in the liberated Aleppo in 9 warehouses owned by Dzhebhat an-Nusra, it became known about the above-mentioned sea transit paid by US firms. Yes, in a year and a half, the Americans swept away all the weapons of the Warsaw Pact from the warehouses of the Bulgarian army and were forced to start purchasing them at the Sopot plant, and the so-called democratic opposition in Syria, for the most part, went under the banner of Dzhebhat al-Nusra.

However, one ship, even continuously cruising between Bulgaria and Saudi Arabia, was not able to transfer all manufactured products of the Bulgarian military plant. Moreover, his leadership recently announced that he had already exhausted all the human resources in the area for continuous three-shift work and was already considering building a hostel for workers from other areas of Bulgaria. Therefore, the journalistic investigation into the Trud newspaper continued.

And recently the documents were published, telling about the activities of the airline Silk Way. This company managed the incredible and impossible: it officially declared that it transports weapons and at the same time received diplomatic status for its flights, which, according to international law, is given only to military aircraft (the so-called №1 sides), and its aircraft were officially civil. And this did not happen in a single corrupt state, but in the following countries: Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Belgium, Turkey, Germany, Great Britain and Greece. Yes, the airline belongs to the government of Azerbaijan, but for such achievements the support of the government of a more influential country is obviously necessary.

So, on May 12, 2015, an Azerbaijani military transport plane with 7.9 tons of PG-7V grenades and 10 tons of PG-9V grenades bought by the American company Purple Shovel from the Bulgarian Burgas airport flew on May 12, 2015. The recipient was the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan, but the plane was unloaded at the Turkish Incirlik airbase.

There were more difficult flights. So, from August 30 to September 5, 2015, the products of the local military plant CIHAZ were loaded on board the aircraft in Baku, then the aircraft was loaded in Belgrade with weapons of the Serbian company Yugoimport SDPR J.P. Formally, the military cargo was intended for the Ministry of War of the Republic of the Congo. However, on the way to the capital of this African state — Brazzaville, the plane landed in the Turkish city of Diarbekir, 235 km from the Syrian border. As a result, 25 M69A 82 mm mortars onboard were adopted by the Islamist group Division 13, operating in Ain Dakhnakh, north of Aleppo. The same number of 40-mm RBG / 6M11 grenade launchers appeared among the groups of the Islamic Brigade Al Safouh and Sukur al-Shamal. Heavy guns Coyote 12.7 x10 mm caliber armed Islamists in Idlib and in the province of Hama. All this is confirmed by videos.

After that, the plane visited Jeddah Airport in Saudi Arabia and only then flew to Brazzaville. From there, however, he did not go to his native Azerbaijan, but to the capital of Burkina Faso, Ouagadougou, where exactly a week later there was an unsuccessful attempt by a military coup of pro-American forces.

In addition to the United States, their main ally in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, which also supports the Islamists in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, also uses Silk Way’s diplomatic flights. During 2016 and 2017, 23 flights were carried out with diplomatic status for the transportation of weapons from Azerbaijan, Bulgaria and Serbia to Jeddah and Riyadh airports. At the same time, the kingdom does not need this weapon for its own army — it is armed with a 100% NATO-style weapon. As a result, the Bulgarian anti-tank guns SPG-9 and GP-25 appeared in Syria in service with the militants of the Islamic state.

The newspaper “Trud” published information about the airline Silk Way, along with 49 documents confirming this. Moreover, she took an unprecedented step and wrote an article not only in Bulgarian, but also in English. But, probably, the result will be the same as in December 2016, when sea transportation of weapons for Al Qaeda was proved with the money of the US government.

Those who call themselves the world democratic public are not interested, even with evidence. It is much more interesting for them to discuss, for example, the attacks of Russian hackers in the United States or to accuse Russia and Iran of supplying arms without bothering to provide evidence.