End users worry arms critics

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PRAGUE -- The crates labeled "sporting and hunting weapons" looked innocuous. But inside, dozens of Czech-made sniper rifles were cradled in plastic foam. Their destination: Yemen, a hotbed of al Qaeda activity.

An unidentified licensed Czech arms dealer sold the rifles -- along with 176 Soviet-era tanks, 60 tank cannons and a dozen L-39 combat jets -- to the Yemeni government in the past four years, according to a new report by an arms-control advocacy group.

The Czech exports, part of the country's $90 million-a-year arms trade, raise troubling questions about the ultimate buyers, since Yemen has a history of reselling arms to people from volatile nations across the Mideast and Africa, human rights groups say.

"You can never be sure that a country won't resell the equipment as its own surplus. It's a serious problem," conceded Vratislav Vajnar, managing director of the Association of Defense Industry, a trade group representing the Czech Republic's 120-plus weapons makers and exporters.

Al Qaeda terrorists are suspected in the USS Cole bombing that killed 17 U.S. sailors in the Yemeni port of Aden in October 2000.

That bombing turned up traces of C-4, a plastic explosive developed for the U.S. military during the Vietnam War. But Semtex, a Czech-made explosive, has been used in other terrorist bombings, and on Nov. 5 border police arrested three men as they tried to smuggle Semtex over the Czech border into Austria. Taped to one of the suspects' bodies was 5 pounds of the powerful explosive -- enough to blow up a dozen jetliners.

The recent Czech weapons trade was outlined in a report by Amnesty International, which cited customs records and other documents.

Amnesty, Transparency International and other groups have expressed growing concern about legal sales of legitimate weapons and armaments to countries such as Yemen that are unstable, have ties to militant groups or are known for reselling equipment to third parties.