In March 1962 the Israeli Defence Forces launched a raid on Syrian positions in the village of Al-Nuqayb, on the eastern shores of the Sea of Galilee. The raid, known as Operation Swallow (מבצע סנונית) was described by the IDF as a retaliation for Syrian attacks on Israeli fishermen in the Sea of Galilee. During the operation Israeli commandos captured a selection of weapons which were subsequently displayed for the press. In this article we’ll examine the weapons captured.
Syria
The Croatian VHS-2 In Iraq
The VHS-2 bullpup self-loading rifle manufactured by Croatia’s HS Produkt became one of the most frequently seen rifles during the Iraqi counter-offensives against ISIS during 2015-17. The rifle regularly appeared in news reports and social media posts and became somewhat synonymous with the fighting for Fallujah and Mosul.
Albanians Fighting in Syria: Xhemati Alban in 2020 – Part 1
This article is the first of a four part series where we will focus on the weapons seen in the propaganda of Xhemati Alban, an ethnic Albanian insurgent group operating in Syria, published in 2020.
ARES New Research Paper Looks at Online Arms Trade in Syria
Armament Research Services have published a new research paper, Analysing the Online Arms Trade in Opposition-controlled Syria. It provides a ‘first-look’ analysis of more than 800 individual trades of small arms, light weapons, munitions, and blank-firing weapons conducted during a three-month period between 1 November 2020 and 31 January 2021. A collaborative effort between affiliates of both ARES and Silah Report the new report lays out a framework for more detailed future work.
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.
Small Arms of Kurdish Movie: ‘The End Will Be Spectacular’ (Ji Bo Azadiyê)
In 2019, a movie called The End Will Be Spectacular (Kurdish: Ji Bo Azadiyê), directed by Ersin Çelik, was released. This film is the first full-length and professional production made in Rojava, in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria. Perhaps the most interesting and important detail about the film is that most of the actors are fighters with the Kurdish Resistance Movement who fought against ISIS and the weapons used in the film are real. One of the actors Cihan Sever (Rûbar Şervan), who plays a Kurdish commander named Çiyager in the film, died in the clash with the Turkish armed forces (TSK) on October 27, 2019.
Guns and Roses – The Bulgarian AK Connection
In the late 1940s and 1950s, the Cold War was well underway. The Western powers had sponsored the creation of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and formed NATO. In response, the Soviets initiated several countermoves such as the creation of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) and the formation of the Warsaw Pact which bound the Soviet satellite states of Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania into a mutual defense agreement.