{"id":30835,"date":"2026-11-03T06:27:58","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T12:27:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/2026\/11\/03\/book-review-from-balkans-to-babylon-zastava-aks-of-yugoslavia-serbia-and-iraq\/"},"modified":"2026-11-03T06:27:58","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T12:27:58","slug":"book-review-from-balkans-to-babylon-zastava-aks-of-yugoslavia-serbia-and-iraq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/2026\/11\/03\/book-review-from-balkans-to-babylon-zastava-aks-of-yugoslavia-serbia-and-iraq\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review &#8211; From Balkans to Babylon: Zastava AKs of Yugoslavia, Serbia, and Iraq"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mejs-video-container\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allow=\"autoplay\" width=\"580\" height=\"380\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/VnGdweC-s4E?controls=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>Available direct from Safar Publishing for $69:<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.safar-publishing.com\/?ref=bvolzuid<br\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/www.safar-publishing.com\/?ref=bvolzuid<br<\/a> \/><br \/>&#8220;From Balkans to Babylon&#8221; by Vladimir Onokoy is a new book from Safar Publishing about Zastava AKs. It covers both the original Zastava guns made in Yugoslavia, the post-breakup production in Serbia, and also the licensed production in Iraq under the name Tabuk. Onokoy has a long history of interest in Zastava rifles and also many years of experience working int he field as an armorer in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia. This has given him a tremendous amount of practical firsthand experience with these guns (among others). The book is a combination of a general history of the models from the early M64 prototypes through the most recent commercial export models and also a memoir of working with them in a variety of conflict zones.<\/p>\n<p>The best firearms reference books: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.headstamppublishing.com\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/www.headstamppublishing.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.patreon.com\/ForgottenWeapons\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.patreon.com\/ForgottenWeapons<\/a><br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.floatplane.com\/channel\/ForgottenWeapons\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.floatplane.com\/channel\/ForgottenWeapons<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! <a href=\"http:\/\/shop.forgottenweapons.com\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/shop.forgottenweapons.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Available direct from Safar Publishing for $69:https:\/\/www.safar-publishing.com\/?ref=bvolzuid&#8220;From Balkans to Babylon&#8221; by Vladimir Onokoy is a new book from Safar Publishing about Zastava AKs. It covers both the original Zastava guns made in Yugoslavia, the post-breakup production in Serbia, and also the licensed production in Iraq under the name Tabuk. Onokoy has a long history of&hellip;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/2026\/11\/03\/book-review-from-balkans-to-babylon-zastava-aks-of-yugoslavia-serbia-and-iraq\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Read More &raquo;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Book Review &#8211; From Balkans to Babylon: Zastava AKs of Yugoslavia, Serbia, and Iraq<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":30836,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[89,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-content","category-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30835\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}