NEW YORK: Last February, Jim Zumbo, a burly, 66-year-old outdoors writer, got a phone call at his home near Cody, Wyoming, from the rock star, Ted Nugent. “You messed up, man,” Zumbo says Nugent told him. “Big time.”

Two days earlier, Zumbo, a leading hunting journalist, outraged Nugent and many other gun owners when he suggested in a blog post that increasingly popular semiautomatic weapons known as black rifles be banned from hunting. Zumbo, stunned that hunters were using the rifles for sport, also suggested giving the guns, prized for their matte black metal finishes, molded plastic parts and combat-ready looks, a new name: “terrorist rifles.”

Gun enthusiasts backlash against Zumbo was swift. He parted company with his employer, Outdoor Life magazine. Zumbo says on his Web site that he was “terminated”; the magazine says that it and Zumbo agreed that he would resign.

But a week after hearing from Nugent, who has a devoted following among gun owners, Zumbo visited him in Waco, Texas, to make amends. For his part, Nugent was prepared to give Zumbo a lesson on the utility and ubiquity of black rifles.

“These guns are everywhere,” Nugent said excitedly in a recent phone interview. “I personally dont know anybody who doesnt have two in his truck.”

Despite their menacing appearance - and in some cases, because of it - black rifles are now the guns of choice for many hunters, target shooters and would-be home defenders. Owners praise their accuracy, ease of use and versatility, as well as their potential to be customized with an array of gadgets. While the gun industrys overall sales have plateaued and its profits have faded over the last decade, black rifles are selling briskly, says Eric Wold, an analyst in New York for Merriman Curhan Ford.

Moreover, manufacturers say, for every dollar spent on black rifles, gun buyers spend at least another customizing the guns from an arsenal of accessories. All of this has combined to make black rifles a lone bright spot for long-suffering American gunsmiths.

Gun-control advocates, however, say black rifles are simply assault weapons under a different name - and as dangerous as they were when Congress instituted a ban on some of them in 1994. The ban did not eliminate black rifles; manufacturers were able to make minor changes to comply with the law and kept selling them. (The ban expired in 2004.)

“What you have are guns essentially designed for close combat,” says Dennis Hennigan, legal director of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence in Washington, who notes that a Beretta black rifle was among the weapons obtained by men suspected of plotting a terrorist attack on Fort Dix, New Jersey. “If your mission is to kill a lot of people very quickly, theyre very well suited for that task.”

But efforts to ban black rifles seem to have only fueled their popularity, analysts say. While some major gun makers were reluctant to defy the spirit of the 1994 ban, dozens of small companies emerged, and their sales surged.

“Whenever theres a push like this, business increases as people buy a firearm while they can,” says Mark Westrom, president of ArmaLite, a maker of black rifles in Geneseo, Illinois. “If you want to sell something to Americans, just tell them they cant have it.”

The most popular black rifle has been in production since the early 1960s. In response to the Armys need for a lightweight infantry rifle, ArmaLite developed the AR-15, which could switch between semiautomatic (only one round per squeeze of the trigger) and fully automatic firing (continuous firing when the trigger is squeezed).

Colt Firearms bought the rights to the rifle, and the military soon adopted it, calling it the M-16. From Vietnam through the Persian Gulf War, the M-16 was the most common combat weapon, and it remains in use by many American forces.

Because of restrictions on the sale of automatic weapons, civilians could buy the AR-15 only in a semiautomatic version.

But if the spirit of the law was a blow to black rifles, the letter of it allowed them to live on and thrive. Colt focused on supplying weapons to the military and law enforcement. But competitors were already copying the rifle, since the original patents granted to ArmaLite had expired. All they had to do was rejigger their designs to reduce the number of offending features.

Demand for black rifles, meanwhile, began to grow. A new generation of hunters, many of whom had fired M-16s in the military, adopted them for shooting predators on rural property and stalking small game. The .223-caliber ammunition they used was inexpensive and easily found.

Five people were killed and four injured after a bomb ripped through a train in north-eastern India, an attack later claimed to have been carried out by a rebel group of tribal guerrillas.

The bomb blast hit the New Delhi-bound Rajdhani Express as it approached Golaghat, a district some 170 miles east of Assam state’s capital, Guwahati, and jolted passengers out of their sleep.

“A car near the luggage van took the whole impact of the blast before dawn Thursday. Five passengers were killed and four others wounded,” T Rabha, an Indian Railway spokesman, told the Associated Press.

Police said the bomb had been planted inside the cargo carriage of the train, which was carrying 800 people. However the blast was confined to just one small section.

The train, a popular air-conditioned high-speed express, was stopped and resumed its journey hours later. Most of the victims were migrants from a neighbouring state.

The Adivasi National Liberation Army, a little-known militant group, said it was responsible for the attack.

“We used a remote control device to trigger the explosion and we will be continuing with such attacks in the coming days,” the commander of the group, Dilip Beg, told wire agencies in a telephone interview from a secret location.

The ALNA draws its support from the ethnic tribals, Adivasis, brought by the British from central India as labour to staff tea plantations 150 years ago.

Although Assam’s tea belt is home to almost 800 estates, producing around 1m tonnes of leaves every year, unemployment is rife and hunger ravages many plantation families.

The rebels are demanding that the government designates Assam’s ethnic Adivasis as a tribal minority and guarantees jobs and places in educational institutions.

Until recently they had limited their campaign to kidnapping tea estate managers for ransom. However, in the last few weeks there has been an upsurge in violence related to the Adivasi issue.

The rebel group had earlier threatened to carry out retaliatory strikes after a mob of locals attacked a peaceful protest march organised by an Adivasi group last month. One man was killed and a Adivasi woman stripped naked and beaten.

Sanjoy Hazarika of the Centre for North East Studies and Policy Research said: “If true this is the major attack by the [Adivasi] National Liberation Army. The use of extreme force is a standard method in the north east to draw attention to a cause. There are many highly organised groups there.”

Officials have not ruled out the possibility that the outlawed ULFA, one of the most powerful rebel groups in Assam, which has been fighting for an independent homeland since 1979, might have aided the tribal rebels. The ANLA also has links with Naga separatists.

Mr Hazarika, who has just returned from Assam’s tea plantations, said that the real problem was that better “armed and mobilised” rebel outfits might offer training in return for cash.

“The Adivasis are not a large outfit but they could become one if given training and guns. It would become a real problem.”

The north east of India is rich in natural resources, but despite its wealth local people complain that they have seen very little trickle back to them.

This coupled with a distinctive racial identity - many groups are ethnically closer to nearby Myanmar and China than to the rest of India - means that the region has been the scene of mini-wars and rebellions for decades.

THE story of a young Scot who travelled the world on stolen credit cards is set to be made into a film by the producer of the Oscar-winning The Last King of Scotland.

It took five years for police to track down Elliot Castro, who wore a gold Rolex, partied with Bono and lived a fantasy jet-set life while still a teenager.

Neil Forsyth, who co-wrote Other People’s Money with Castro, has now sold the film rights to Cowboy Films.

The author, who first met Castro after reading about him in The Scotsman, said: “It is a fascinating story - a classic cat-and-mouse tale. By the time he was caught, he was only 21.”

Mr Forsyth, who is originally from Broughty Ferry, said he hoped the film would capture the human story behind Castro’s escapades. “Underneath, it is the story of a young man becoming totally isolated.

“Not that that is an excuse, but this was somebody who was very intelligent but who was failed by the education services.

“There is also the story of the breakdown and reunion of the family.

“Elliot and his mother and father and brothers are now very much a family again.”

Castro, has returned to Glasgow after being jailed for two years in April 2005. He now advises banks on fraud protection and works as a DJ.

Mr Forsyth added: “He lives a very humble, simple life, but he is much happier.

“It would be fantastic to find a young Scottish actor to play Castro.”