[Red State] On Wednesday, Fox News presented a video of an arms shipment reportedly intercepted by Israeli forces. The video was not accompanied by any narration or indeed any audio, but reportedly shows a cache of weapons and explosives headed for Hamas in Gaza, and supplied by Iran.The video displays a wide range of arms and munitions, including mines, hand-thrown grenades, and other explosives, rocket-propelled grenade launchers (the infamous RPG-7 of Cold War infamy) what appear to be a variety of sidearms including Glock and Beretta pistols, and interestingly, what look to be AR-15 platform rifles, although whether they are the M-16/M4 version that has the full-auto or 3-shot burst capability is not discernable.
There are also displayed several M203-style grenade launchers that can be fitted to the forearm of the AR-pattern rifles.
If this cache is, as Isreal claims, coming from Iran, the appearance of what could well be American-made AR-pattern rifles, as well as what look to be Beretta and Glock sidearms - both of which are used by the U.S. military - one has to wonder if there is now a connection between Iran, the world's number one state sponsor of terrorism, and Afghanistan, where in the disastrous 2021 pullout by the U.S. military, large amounts of weapons and ammunition were left behind to fall into the hands of the Taliban.
What's concerning, given the video evidence, is the amount of mines and RPG-7 devices shown. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are currently engaged mostly in urban operations in Gaza, and both mines and RPGs present significant challenges in the urban environment.
RPGs in particular give an individual fighter the capacity to effectively strike light armored vehicles or even tanks if fired from an elevated position - a tank's armor isn't thick everywhere and the top of the tank is as thin as that armor gets.
Iran, it should be noted, has sworn to "punish" Israel for the killing of an Iranian general in Damascus on Monday.