Jalil Jurani thinks he has found a good enough deal: an AK-47 made in the former Yugoslavia for 95,000 dinars, around 32 dollars and a fortune in a country ravaged by two decades of war and economic sanctions.

Before putting down his cash, Jurani requests to test out his investment. He fires a few rounds in the air, drawing not a bit of attention from the dozens of other customers at the arms bazaar.

"I live in the Jamila neighborhood and our house was often hit at night by fire from the Saddam Fedayeen," a militant volunteer corps of the fallen regime, Jurani says.

"The Fedayeen are still hiding. I'm obliged to protect my family and I can't consider just the price," says the 34-year-old, a laborer who has been out of work since US troops routed Saddam Hussein's forces from Baghdad on April 9.

The Meridi market, with its dusty stands and rundown stalls, has long been a shopper's haven in Baghdad, but under Saddam's authoritarian state weapons were never for the buying, residents say.

The police used to conduct frequent raids on the market, seizing illegal products and stolen goods. But the police disappeared with Saddam, and now weapons by the crate can be found right on the pavement.

With so much to choose from, some weapons sell better than others. Two Egyptian-made Port Said machine guns, with long black barrels, attract little interest, to the dismay of the teenage boy peddling them.

Instead, nearly everyone prefers light arms. The best sellers are pistols, followed by AK-47s, which many already know how to fire as they were used by the Iraqi army.

In the free-for-all that followed the regime's collapse, full army depots were looted by mobs, while some soldiers returned home with guns they never used once.

Such is the case with Ali Karim, 20, who left the security post he guarded carrying a grenade launcher used by riot police to fire tear gas.

Without the tear gas, Karim is unlikely to find a buyer, but his weapon provokes waves of curiosity at the arms market among people who wanted to lay their hands on one of the former instruments of state oppression.

Gun ownership is widespread in Iraq's tribal structure, but under Saddam urban residents had to go through endless bureaucracy to possess arms legally.

Elsewhere in Meridi market, a Russian-made Kalashnikov rifle is snatched up immediately.

"I want to protect my family in these difficult times and no one can stop me," says the buyer, Said Badr, a 40-year-old chauffeur.

"I'm willing to hand it over to the police for nothing once security is brought back," he adds.

Ali Fawzi, a 42-year-old electrician, heaps scorn on the arms bazaar as he passes it by.

"It's not weapons that we need, it's electricity, water and medicine," he shouts out.

But the crowd, busy shopping, hardly notices him.

SPACE.WIRE