Yemen weapons dealers selling machine guns on X
Yemen weapons dealers selling machine guns on X
The traders operate in the capital Sana’a and other areas under control of the Houthis.
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.
Oh dear god you normally have to go pretty far into the dark web to see something like this.
Great work Elon, just amazing.
60You really don't this is some 2014-era "le dark webz" scaremongering shit. I guarantee you your local city (if you're in the US) has a gun BST Facebook group lol. Not to mention that on the actual dark web, you'll find gun trades honeypots within seconds
31The difference being that those are local groups where you hopefully are not purchasing or selling a weapon to or from a group of people the United States Military is currently at war with (conducting kinetic operations, w/e) and has designated a terrorist group.
Yeah, its not hard to find places to buy guns on the internet.
It normally is fairly hard to find places to do so from terrorists or organized criminal groups overseas. Partially because, as you say, most of these you find quickly are honeypots, or scams, and finding 'legit' markets is not easy.
16
This is bordering on clickbait, because of course weapons are being sold in some form or fashion at most forums or marketplace in Yemen.
It's a country that has been wrecked by civil war and years of a genocidal air campaign by the Saudis, and now intermittent targeted strikes by American and British naval forces.
I would be shocked if most of those people aren't also selling those openly at their local Bazaar or market.
6I... uh...
...ok.
So, if you go on Facebook, or Craiglist, and then privately buy or sell a firearm that is:
Fully Automatic
Does not meet required barrel length for its caliber
Is a fucking grenade or other explosive
Sold to or purchased from a person in a state you do not reside in
And/or
You do not also do the required paperwork (and usually a background check on the purchaser) to indicate to the government that you have sold/purchased a firearm, or at least keep a record of this for yourself...
...in almost every state in the US, you are now likely a felon, should your activities become noticed by law enforcement.
https://www.findlaw.com/consumer/consumer-transactions/private-gun-sale-laws-by-state.html
In fact, the ATF and FBI have quite often done honeypot operations in these kinds of groups.
Please tell me you can see the difference between exploiting the loopholes in a country with a highly complex array or firearms laws, and an open air bazaar in a foreign country with basically no gun laws.
Twitter/X, which is, last I checked, a US based and registered company, is now facilitating unregulated firearms sales to a potentially international audience, and again, it is facilitating arms transfers to or from persons and entities the US likely considers to be terrorists.
I do not have to have any political opinion regarding the Houthis to be able to tell you that this is yet another gigantic legal quagmire for Twitter/X.
3
So exciting to see Twitter expanding into e-commerce!
34the everything app
5
Why this is a problem? In a country that selling guns and weapons is legal what wrong in using online websites for this?
19it's not like the US doesn't sell guns everywhere, even where they aren't wanted by the local gov. See: Mexico
8In the case of Mexico the US literally sells them! See: Operation Fast and Furious, Operation Wide Receiver.
4
I wonder if they also have anti-tank weapons available.
18There 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'.
3A. 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.
5
This premium crafted AK penetrates all armor! One of a kind, best in town, you won't find better deal! Allah as my witness, no tanks will survive your shots, only 899 ryals and you get a free fake beard!
0
I mean I've seen multiple channels on youtube advertising refurbished guns in Pakistan
Also plenty of sketchy videos of "gunsmiths" making hilarious abominations, like a meter long pistol magazine, also for sale
10Yemeni-modified
I got questions.
What do they do mill out the magwell like Century does the WASRs?
Pakistani-produced Glock-clone pistols for around $900 each.
That's a terrible deal.
7Makes up for the lost World Bank ads
6Semen weapons dealers yelling machine guns on X
5Kalashinokovs
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.
5taking a word that has different meaning in different contexts and insisting that it can only have one possible meaning just so you can sound smarter than others is not where it's at.
according to US legal code,
The term “machinegun” means any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.
10Do you realize that politicians made up this definition and no expert agrees with it?
1
Actually strawberries are an accessory fruit, not a berry. Ha, now it is I who is smarter than you!
4It's BBC, not a technical manual.
1Weird attempt at being pedantic considering that this is undoubtedly not an actual AK-47
Also the AK and StG 44 are clearly submachine guns based on their developmental history, and submachine gun is clearly a very small machine gun. And the US legal definition agrees :B
1