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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Oh dear god you normally have to go pretty far into the dark web to see something like this.
Great work Elon, just amazing.
You 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
The 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.
How do you even find things that aren’t honeypots over there?
I’ve no interest in guns myself but honestly, everything is so suspicious over there… Cheap ass drugs, supposedly real US dollars, etc…
Word of mouth
Yerp, trusted forums
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.
I… 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.
Why are you assuming that there is a state of law and order to any degree, outside of maybe the capital…?
Are you aware that we’re talking about Yemen…?
Notice that Wikipedia page for their civil war doesn’t currently have an end date i.e. it’s still active…
It’s not like Twitter is providing up support for these transactions, I’m saying it’s not surprising they exist on a public forum like Twitter for a country that’s ravaged by a decade war and famine.
Just like how kids in the United States sell drugs on Twitter or Instagram.
So no, Twitter is not automatically liable just because people are abusing the platform. I’m not saying it can’t get there, just that it’s not that simple.
Regardless, I wasn’t saying anything about the legality of it for Twitter.
I am not. I in fact said the opposite.
Please tell me you can see the difference between exploiting the loopholes in a country with a highly complex array
orof firearms laws, and an open air bazaar in a foreign country with basically no gun laws.EDIT: Now that I’m quoting myself, that or should be an of, whoops.
At no point did I mention laws, or legal loopholes.
And I certainly never mentioned anything about the United States, or the legal liability of Twitter, except as in response to your comment.
I think you’re confusing my acknowledgment of the daily reality of a country that is currently divided between 3 and 5 major and minor factions, all in various states of civil conflict, with being something else entirely.
I wasn’t providing any opinion, or analysis, on the legality from Twitter’s perspective. I certainly wasn’t making any comparisons to laws in the United States and Yemen, or anything else that you’ve been talking about since your first comment.
I would make the “duh no shit this is clickbait” observation if the BBC ran yet another story about how kids are selling drugs on Snapchat or Instagram.
Are we pretending the Houthis are innocents now?
No, we’re acknowledging that countries wrecked by civil war and intermittent famines going back a decade, aren’t known for their ability to police domestic issues fairly, on time, or even at all. I’d be more interested to know what percent of the households are NOT armed.
For the record, I said nothing about any government, or political groups/militias. They’re armed primarily by their proxy sponsor, I’m talking about retail arms sale to civilians, bandits, normies, and scared parents alike.
Unless you think IRCG is arming the Houthis via Twitter.
You are also aware that the Houthis have been and still are indiscriminately targeting civilian cargo ships of any nationality, yes?
Its not like all of these ships are going to or from Israel, or registered as Israeli or US vessels.
Its actually quite an oddity to see NATO, Indian Navy and PLAN vessels all doing anti-piracy missions in the same place and time.
I’m going to need you to actually quote which part of my comment you’re responding to.
As far as I can tell, what you wrote has exactly nothing to do with anything that I said.
“Avinatan, my boyfriend, is still there, and we need to bring them back before it’s going to be too late. We don’t want to lose more people than we already lost,” Argamani said.
False. You mentioned the Saudi government, the UK government, and the US government. You just neglected to mention the Houthis who are engaged in attacking civilians in international waters. Which is the reason for the air strikes by the US/UK which you’re denouncing.
The people in Yemen are humans, not animals. As humans they are responsible for their actions. Cut out this white man’s burden nonsense. That narrative is older than all of us.
I didn’t denounce anyone, even among the groups and actors I mentioned. I simply gave a very brief look at situation. You’re mad that I didn’t provide a complete and detailed analysis, which is irrelevant to my point about civilians bearing arms.
Not for nothing, but your politics are pretty clear, and if it was relevant at ALL to this subject, I’d happily engage. But it’s not, so stop yelling into the wind to distract from the fact that your comments are clearly about your disdain of the Yemini people.
I feel sympathy the Yemenis having to live under brutal regimes. Especially for homosexual Yemenis who are literally crucified.
I think it’s you that has no sympathy for Yemnis. You see Houthis hating the US and Israel and like that enough to look the other way about how horrible they are to the people of Yemen.
I can’t tell if you’re a troll, or actually insane. But I guess those don’t have to be mutually exclusive.
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.
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!
So exciting to see Twitter expanding into e-commerce!
the everything app
Why this is a problem? In a country that selling guns and weapons is legal what wrong in using online websites for this?
it’s not like the US doesn’t sell guns everywhere, even where they aren’t wanted by the local gov. See: Mexico
In the case of Mexico the US literally sells them! See: Operation Fast and Furious, Operation Wide Receiver.
Makes up for the lost World Bank ads
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.
taking 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.
Sure, but that’s also not the common-use definition; it includes things like bump stocks. There are plenty of examples in which legal terminology doesn’t reflect plain English, and the journalist obviously isn’t using US legalese.
id call the common use of the term machine gun to be any automatic firearm accurate enough, but you also have a point about inflated language
it includes things like bump stocks
Not anymore! Thanks to a court case, bump stocks, FRTs, and the like are all legal once again. Swiftlinks are still illegal though.
Also the news is totally doing exactly what you imply, they do it every time. Hell they are fond of calling the AR-15 “high powered” despite the .223 round carrying about as much kenetic energy as a hot .357 mag round, or calling standard capacity magazines “high capacity” because despite it being the standard it’s higher than their arbitrarily set “low” number, or even calling things “fully semi-automatic” which is just word vomit. They don’t care, because the people who are knowledgeable about the subject are already incapable of being manipulated like that sure, but most of the general public is not knowledgeable about it so the percentage works out in their favor to get views. Eventually (and I think soon,) they’ll overuse it and maybe it’ll start to lose its effect.
That said, most people do just mean “gun that fires full auto” for “machine guns,” including machine pistols like the Glock 18. They’re not typically making a distinction between LMG, SMG, etc, unless they do specify “LMG.” I have no doubt these AKs are full auto (I’d be surprised to learn they were semi-auto actually), and thus they would fit the commonly used definition of “machine gun” enough that I won’t give them guff about it. This time.
just because something isn’t common around you doesn’t mean it’s not common.
Just because it is common around you doesn’t mean it is common on a societal scale, which is the one they are speaking to. You know this. You know, that the general public defines guns this way. The technical definition is not the common one.
that’s literally what I just fucking said
I apologize, the way my phone collapses a lot of comments to fit the screen made it look like you were @tal@lemmy.today. Which made it seem like you were saying, basically the opposite. I didn’t notice the difference in commenter names until I expanded each little downward pointing chevron on this thread.
Weird 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
It’s BBC, not a technical manual.
Yemeni-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.
You dont want your Plock?
Not for $900! In the US you can get an Austrian (well, Austrian design, US manufacture) made name brand one for like $600.
But would I buy a Plock for $300? Absolutely, that’s just funny.
For $300 I’d buy a hi point yeet cannon and spend the remaining $150 on blackjack and hookers.
But that’s not quite as funny, that’s just some people’s tuesday.
Semen weapons dealers yelling machine guns on X
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
Good. If anyone needs weapons right now it Yemeni citizens. Gazans could use some guns too.
I wonder how many people in the US use FB messenger to contact their FFL?
Their what?
Firearms dealer
Facebook Father-in-Law?
Foot Friendly Leaopard.
Firearm Foistin Local
Five Finger Lemons
