The Firearm Blog

The NY Times (emphasis mine):

But to arm the Afghan forces that it hopes will lead this fight, the American military has relied since early last year on a fledgling company led by a 22-year-old man whose vice president was a licensed masseur.

With the award last January of a federal contract worth as much as nearly $300 million, the company, AEY Inc., which operates out of an unmarked office in Miami Beach, became the main supplier of munitions to Afghanistan’s army and police forces.

Since then, the company has provided ammunition that is more than 40 years old and in decomposing packaging, according to an examination of the munitions by The New York Times and interviews with American and Afghan officials. Much of the ammunition comes from the aging stockpiles of the old Communist bloc, including stockpiles that the State Department and NATO have determined to be unreliable and obsolete, and have spent millions of dollars to have destroyed.

In purchasing munitions, the contractor has also worked with middlemen and a shell company on a federal list of entities suspected of illegal arms trafficking.

Moreover, tens of millions of the rifle and machine-gun cartridges were manufactured in China, making their procurement a possible violation of American law.

It is a long article. Somewhat sensationalist. Looks like some kids (18, 22 and 25 years old) found a source of soviet ammo and sold it. This is the kind of story that they will make into a move.

Read it here.

UPDATE:

This photo from the US Army shows the state of the boxes of ammo they were receiving

Hat Tip: Danger Room

Last week the CRS Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 1999-2006 report was released. I had a bit of trouble finding it online.

Here are some interesting facts from the report:

71.5% of the value of all arms agreements worldwide were with developing nations during 2006. The 2003-2006 figure is 66.4%.

This came to a total of US$28.8 Billion. A decrease of US$3 billion since 2005.

Suppliers of arms 2006 (millions of USD)
1 United States $10,306
2 Russia $8,100
3 United Kingdom $3,100
4 Germany $1,800
5 Israel $1,300
6 Sweden $1,100
7 China $800
8 Spain $300
9 Italy $300
10 France $300
11 Poland $200

Recipients of arms 2006 (millions of USD)
1 Pakistan $5,100
2 India $3,500
3 Saudi Arabia $3,200
4 Venezuela $3,100
5 Algeria $2,100
6 Israel $2,100
7 Brazil $1,100
8 Iraq $900
9 Indonesia $600
10 South Korea $500

Some interesting graphs (click to increase size):

Click here to download the report.
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