The Path to Death: How EU Failures Helped Paris Terrorists Obtain Weapons
Today, investigators know that they are dealing with an entire arsenal of deadly weapons. It's not just reactivated blank-shooting weapons like Coulibaly's Ceskas or his Tokarev pistol, a weapon which went through the same transformation -- from deadly weapon to blank-firing pistol and back. When European terrorists are looking to acquire a tool of murder, they have a wide range of choices available to them. There are the old reliables like the Russian-made Arsenal revolver model 1895, made in 1932 -- one of which was found in Coulibaly's apartment. Or the Belgian FN Browning of the type obtained by Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a participant in the Paris attacks.
But weapons stolen from militaries or police forces are also available, as in the case of the Copenhagen attacks, which resulted in two deaths. And then there are all of the Kalashnikovs from the Balkans that find their way on a variety of paths to Western Europe. Following the Charlie Hebdo attacks, police confiscated two such weapons used in the killings; after the Paris massacres last November, they impounded six of them.
Today, investigators know that they are dealing with an entire arsenal of deadly weapons. It's not just reactivated blank-shooting weapons like Coulibaly's Ceskas or his Tokarev pistol, a weapon which went through the same transformation -- from deadly weapon to blank-firing pistol and back. When European terrorists are looking to acquire a tool of murder, they have a wide range of choices available to them. There are the old reliables like the Russian-made Arsenal revolver model 1895, made in 1932 -- one of which was found in Coulibaly's apartment. Or the Belgian FN Browning of the type obtained by Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a participant in the Paris attacks.
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