re: The flare with the "Star of David"
My guess is that because it's an illumination round, those markings are representative of the fact that it's a parachute flare round. Illumination rounds are often called "star" rounds so that explains the so-called star of david.
And a photo essay from foreign policy; it includes a number of photographs of the weapons stores that we've been talking about.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/08/bombs_awayHere's one of them:
Empty boxes of looted anti-tank mines at a warehouse weapons storage facility outside Benghazi.
There were 12 such warehouses filled with Belgian-produced plastic PRBM mines, a particularly nasty mine as it is made mostly from plastic and thus hard to discover with metal detectors. It can also be fitted with an anti-lifting device that makes the mine explode as soon as someone tries to extract it from the ground. Local fishermen were looting the mines to take out the explosives in order to make bombs for fishing. On the outskirts of Ajdabiya, Qaddafi forces recently laid at least two minefields, containing both anti-tank and anti-vehicle mines. One of the mine fields was detected after an electricity utility truck ran over an anti-personnel mine.
Interesting segment from Al Jazeera English about some of the Libyan rebels heavier vehicles:
Here are some interesting Western-made weapons in use in Libya today:
Here's someone carrying a WWII-vintage British Sterling submachine gun
FN-MAG machine gun
FN2000 used by Loyalist forces
This Beretta reminds me of a lot of the types of weapons that turn up in weapons captured from Mexican drug cartels.
Another Beretta, this time a PM12 submachine gun.
The machine gun here is an extremely old Browning M1919 as well as ACU-pattern fatigues.
More ACU-pattern fatigues left behind by retreating Loyalist soldiers.
M-40 RRs
This isn't a western weapon, I just thought it was interesting they were using AFV periscopes as binoculars
This isn't necessarily "western" weaponry, but since the helmets were mentioned above, I figured I'd post another picture of a composite ballistic helmet, except this one came from Loyalist forces.
Carl Gustav AT Weapon
Two different types of FALs, one modern, one older
Loyalist M113 APC
Here's another M1919
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Looking through the photos I'm left with two distinct impressions
1) The sheer variety of weapons used - pointing to a few grainy pictures of weapons (like in the OP video for instance) as proof that the US is supplying arms to the rebels isn't the way to go. Porous borders, an Islamic insurgency, willing arms dealers, etc will always make sure that quite a variety of weapons will make their way into locations like this. At this point, the "odd" weapons, the ones that make us go "hmm", are dispersed at such a wide rate (judging by the photos) that they're probably more easily explained away by ascribing it to unique scenarios, as with the ancient WWII weaponry seen above.
2) The photographic evidence is probably only representative of a small cross-section of the insurgency. The overall lack of military discipline or anything that would indicate even a basic level of competence from the photographs of rebel forces suggests that the people in the photos are, for the most part, weekend warriors so to speak, the people who just picked up a gun and headed west. In other words, they're not the people the "West" would be supplying arms to.
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As I was writing the last point, it made me think about the experience of the insurgency in Iraq. Specifically, what we see now as the rebel force in Libya is extremely ad hoc, you see people shooting PKMs on their back, rockets being launched in all haphazard ways and in general lacking any real military effectiveness. However, if the conflict is allowed to continue, it's very likely these types of fighters would either all go home or be killed off; survival-of-the-fittest if you will, while the rest of the rebels will adapt and transform into an actual military force to be reckoned with. This is essentially the story of what happened in Iraq; the "bad" insurgents got blown up by helicopters, while the "good" insurgents proliferated.
Speaking from the perspective of the US, this is just another reason we want a quick end to this conflict, in order to prevent the rise of a skilled, much more radical movement then the one currently fighting Qaddafi.
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Lastly, speaking from a purely practical standpoint, it makes no sense for the "West" to be sending weapons like FN rifles and machine guns to the rebels because they already have a relatively large reserve of small arms. If the US/West did try to turn the tide on the ground, the priority would probably be first with advisers, and then for specialty weapons that would act as force multipliers, primarily things like communications equipment, or anti-tank weaponry, laser designators, that sort of thing.
Topic: Libya Rebels had NATO Weapons from Day 1 - Brand New in the box! (Read 1374 times)