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.
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.