Israel: Terror Attack Fails with Jammed Improvised Submachine gun

This “Carlo” was captured in Israel in August of 2016.

 On 9 February 2017, in Israel at the city of Petah Tikva, a Palestinian identified as Sadeq Nasser Abu Mazen, attempted a terror attack. The attack was not very successful.  One man was shot in the leg, and a couple of others were hit by bullet fragments or shards of material fragmented by bullets. The weapon that failed in this attack was a small shop produced submachine gun.

The Israeli term for improvised submachine guns is a “Carlo”.  The term derives from the similarity to the Carl Gustav M/45 9mm submachine gun.  The guns run about from about $900 to $5,500 on the black market, with ammunition running at $20 per 9mm cartridge. The gun jammed several times. From timesofisrael.com:

Just before 5:00 p.m., the gunman, opened fire at a bus near the Petah Tikva market on Baron Hirsch Street. One a man in his 50s was shot in the leg, while two women — one in her 50s, the other in her 30s — were hit by shrapnel, according to the Magen David Adom ambulance service.

He was identified by Palestinian media as Sadeq Nasser Abu Mazen, 18, from Beita al-Foka, a village south of Nablus.

The Palestinian teenager used a Carlo-style submachine gun, a comparatively cheap improvised firearm, which is prevalent in the West Bank. Carlos, which are often cobbled together from water pipes and spare parts, are notoriously unreliable, and the weapon used in the attack apparently jammed multiple times.

What is normally an automatic weapon was only able to fire a shot every few seconds, according to videos from the scene. An eyewitness told Walla news that the gunmen also entered a shop and tried to open fire, but his gun wouldn’t work at all.

As much as this black market Carlo failed, the Israelis are lucky he did not use a simple slam fire 12 gauge shotgun. They are much easier to make, and are simple to use. Loaded with improvised buckshot, the 12 gauge could have been more deadly. It is likely more shots would have been fired. Perhaps 12 gauge shells are harder to obtain than 9mm on the black market in Israel.

Six people were wounded, one stabbed by the terrorist with a screw driver.  Three are in moderate condition in the hospital. It appears the worst gunshot wound was a shot to the leg.

©2017 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

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