Weapons dealers in Yemen are openly using the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, to sell Kalashnikovs, pistols, grenades and grenade-launchers.
The traders operate in the capital Sana’a and other areas under control of the Houthis, a rebel group backed by Iran and proscribed as terrorists by the US and Australian governments.
The advertisements are mostly in Arabic and aimed primarily at Yemeni customers in a country where the number of guns is often said to outnumber the population by three to one.
The BBC has found several examples online, offering weapons at prices in both Yemeni and Saudi riyals.
The words beside the weapons are designed to lure in the buyers.
“Premium craftsmanship and top-notch warranty,” says one advertisement. “The Yemeni-modified AK is your best choice.”
A demonstration video, filmed at night, shows the seller blasting off a 30-round magazine on full automatic.
Another offers sand-coloured Pakistani-produced Glock pistols for around $900 each.
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I wonder if they also have anti-tank weapons available.
There are grenades and grenade launchers that are or have specific anti tank designs (though they probably won’t work too well against any tank produced after the 70s), so, probably yes.
Also, while an RPG is not technically a ‘grenade launcher’ (as it fires in a basically flat, direct trajectory, compared to grenade launchers that lobbed more like artillery shells, indirectly in high arcs), a lot of less weapons literate people and journalists see ‘Rocket Propelled Grenade’ and might think it thus counts as a ‘grenade launcher’.
A. You have no clue about how artillery fires.
B. It’s literally in the name. They didn’t do that for shits and giggles. They weren’t trying to fool the Germans.
C. The 40mm HEDP round is fully capable of destroying light armor. In your limited idea of grenade launchers there is nothing that ever got higher than a mobility kill on a tank.
D. The trajectory of the ordnance is not included in anyone’s definition of grenade.
Please don’t run around spouting random stuff so confidently. I’m allergic to that.
Kalashinokovs
A file picture of an AK47 rifle and ammunition
An AK-47 is an assault rifle, not a machine gun.
Assault rifles – the main weapon that most countries issue their infantry these days – are a weapon that are typically used in semi-automatic mode, but also have a select fire mode to optionally fire in burst or fully-automatic mode. They can’t sustain fully-automatic fire for an extended period of time.
Machine guns are heavier weapons that can deal with dissipating more heat and so are more-amenable to be fired in fully-automatic mode for a sustained period of time.
If you wanted a machine gun that’d go with the AK-47, it’d be something like the RPD.
I have a sneaking suspicion that journalists intentionally do this to make their articles sound more exciting, because every time I see a weapon term used incorrectly – often calling a weapon a machine gun or some lighter vehicle a “tank” – I saw this done in some media with VN-4s during the Venezuelan political unrest, which is not a vehicle that looks much like a tank – it is substituting a more-powerful weapon for a less-powerful one, and not the reverse.
It’s BBC, not a technical manual.
