The Saudi-led intervention into Yemen has sparked considerable interest concerning the flow of arms into the conflict. One of the areas that illustrates the wide range from which Saudi-led forces source their armaments from is their selection of scoped rifles. The Saudi military’s collection of sniper, designated marksmen’s, and anti-materiel rifles in use in Yemen illustrates the vast assortment of countries from which they source their armaments from. This study draws its data and sources largely from the same extensive private image collection of open-source social media photos and videos taken by soldiers of the Royal Saudi Land Forces, the Saudi National Guard, and the Saudi Border Guard that informed Silah Report’s previous article on Saudi Kalashnikov-pattern self-loading rifles and is thus able to paint a uniquely representative picture of the weapons they use. In the first part of this article we will examine the precision and anti-materiel rifles and scopes which can be identified includng the FN SCAR-H, Canadian LRT-3 and the French PGM Hecate II.
Josh O
The Hakim Rifle in Somali Service: A Forgotten History
The Hakim self-loading rifle is often thought of as having been symbolic of Egypt’s military presence in the Sinai peninsula during the 1956 War and as a middle ground between its 7.92×57mm FN49 self-loading rifles and later 7.62×39mm Kalashnikov pattern self-loading rifles. However, there exists little evidence that the rifle was used in such capacity by the Egyptians, only a few photographs exist of the Hakim in use in the Sinai, usually in rear echelon or training contexts. Much more evidence suggests that the Hakim was employed heavily in Yemen by both Egyptian soldiers and their Yemeni allies through photographs and Hakim rifles that occasionally surface on the Yemeni market. A further yet unexplored destination and user of Hakim rifles is Somalia and this article will illustrate how evidence suggests that it was actually one of the most prolific users of the Hakim.
Small Arms of the Iranian Movie: “Damascus Time”
Damascus Time or (به وقت شام), written and directed by Ebrahim Hatamikia and produced by Mohammad Khazai, is a 2018 Iranian film about a fictionalized hijacking of a humanitarian cargo aircraft by ISIS during the Second Palmyra Offensive in 2017 and the survival of its Iranian and Syrian crew. Filmed in both Iran and Syria, the film takes clear inspiration from American action staples such as Air Force One and the many cinematic depictions of the Global War on Terror. But in this film, expressions of American exceptionalism and sympathetic portrayals of their foreign policy are exchanged for Iranian ones. Like with many films, the firearms used within the film and how they are portrayed reveal certain subtexts around the film and how it portrays the civil war in Syria.