A long-lost video filmed by fighters of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, once thought lost to us who’ve been following the arms trade in the Pak-Afghan region over the last decade and longer, has recently resurfaced after a few years of it being pushed off the world-wide-web and into the deep reaches of the online archives. It was once again shared with us by our colleague Mick who runs an OSINT feed, much to our jubilation.
AK-74
Iraq, Syria and Yemen: February Market Highlights
Welcome to another installment of our series examining gun market trends across the MENA region. With this series, we are focusing on Iraq, Idlib, Afrin and Yemen at the moment. The time-frame of the data in this article runs from 8th February to 21st February 2020. The prices are average and are rounded up or down (for example 126=150, 124=100). If you missed our last installment you can find it here.
The Emblem of the Shiite Muqāwama: The Cold War’s Third Alternative
When designing a new flag or representative banner of any given social group, one of the most important pillars of vexillology (the study of flags) one should keep in mind is clarity. Any serious flag should at least be indicative of what it represents, and how the people brandishing it wish to be perceived by the outside world. A clueless spectator means failure in offering a sufficiently suggestive flag for the group’s representation to the public. A flag is an important attribute for any group, presenting a visual introduction and identification through colors, symbols and objects featured on the banner.
Winter Drills of Armed Forces of the Republic of Kazakhstan
Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Kazakhstan regularly publishes news on their official website. We collected photos from various winter exercises and drills and depicting small arms in the hands of Kazakh soldiers. The units in the photos represent various branches of this country’s military.
I hope you enjoyed this set of photos. Let us know in the comments section what interesting piece of gear have you noticed.
AK-74s of Kazakhstan Army’s Military Exercises
Ministry of Defense of Kazakhstan has recently posted news releases on their website concerning military exercises of high-ranking officers.
Particularly, battalion commanders of mechanized infantry, paratrooper and marine regiments took part in mentioned exercises. The purpose of that event was to upgrade the qualification of the officers by a number of tactical and strategic classes, defensive and offensive scenario studies, as well as familiarization with new weapon systems.
During these exercises, the officers were carrying AK-74 assault rifles, which had some interesting upgrades and mods on them. Let’s take a closer look at each of them.
The railed dust cover, handguard and gas tube cover are most likely made by Russian company Zenit. The dust cover is Zenit B-33 (Зенит Б-33), the handguard is a Zenit B-10M (Б-10М) and the railed gas tube cover is a Zenit B-19 (Б-19). Here is a picture of all three accessories:
The stock adapter is probably made by Israeli company FAB Defense. It is the model M4-AK P or a similar one. Some of these stock adapters differ only by the material, which is almost impossible to distinguish by only a visual reference. In any case, it is a conversion stock which allows mounting AR-15/ M-4 rifle stocks on the AK platform. It also has a built-in side folding mechanism. Here is the image of M4-AK P model:
The buttstock itself is also made by FAB Defense and it is their GLR-16 CP model with an adjustable cheek riser.
The angled foregrip mounted on the handguard has the distinct shape of another FAB Defense product – PTK.
The scope is unidentified, but it is presumably a Russian made one. It is a night vision or thermal scope judging from the looks. Possibly, it is a newer version of NSPU scope. We’ll update this post as soon as we find out the exact model of the scope.
Similar exercises of squad leaders were held too and it is interesting to note that squad leaders were equipped with AK-74 rifles in stock configuration. Judging from that, the upgrades for AK-74s are available for high ranking officers only. Here is a picture of squad leader sergeants firing their AK-74s:
FYI: here is the small arms’ list of Armed Forces of Kazakhstan (from Wikipedia):
Small Arms
- 9×18mm Makarov PM Standard issue pistol for armed forces.
- 9×18mm PP-90M1 Submachine gun, used by special forces.
- 5.45×39mm AK-74 Standard issue rifle of Kazakh military.
- 5.45×39mm RPK-74
- 7.62×39mm AKM Reserve units
- 7.62×54mmR SVD Dragunov sniper rifle
- 7.62×54mmR PKM machine gun
- 7.62×54mmR PKP Pecheneg machine gun, used by special forces.
- 7.62×39mm ARX-160 Assault rifle, used by special forces
- 12.7mm NSV machine gun