IT IS said there are enough discarded weapons of war in Aranyaprathet, the dusty gateway to Cambodia's bandit country, to fight an Asian Desert Storm twice over.
Like Afghanistan and Angola before, the spluttering peace in Cambodia has spawned a trade in unwanted arms that is bringing death to the jungles of Burma, the highlands of Sri Lanka and the streets of Hongkong.
In what has seen called the biggest arms bazaar in the world, guns are abandoned by disenchanted revolutionaries and surface months later in the hands of criminals or at the world's troublespots. A grenade can cost less than US$1.
''You can find any type of infantry weapon that has been in common issue just about anywhere in the world, and at ridiculous prices,'' said a western military attache who has monitored the flow of arms.
Thailand, under mounting pressure to cut off the easy availability of weapons, has launched a drive against the shadowy international dealers believed to be handling the military hardware.
But the campaign ran into problems when Prime Minister Mr Chuan Leekpai revealed after talks with security officials that the Thai middlemen involved were thought to be ''people in uniforms''.