Not The Onion

12165 readers

364 users here now

Welcome

We're not The Onion! Not affiliated with them in any way! Not operated by them in any way! All the news here is real!

The Rules

Posts must be:

Links to news stories from...
...credible sources, with...
...their original headlines, that...
...would make people who see the headline think, “That has got to be a story from The Onion, America’s Finest News Source.”

Comments must abide by the server rules for Lemmy.world and generally abstain from trollish, bigoted, or otherwise disruptive behavior that makes this community less fun for everyone.

And that’s basically it!

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

395

Yemen weapons dealers selling machine guns on X (www.bbc.com)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

62 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] -2 points 2 months ago (13 children)

Are we pretending the Houthis are innocents now?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (12 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

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.

load more comments (10 replies)