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Comment by asdff | Hacker News Reader

The level of ordinance is enough evidence that there is significant outside support. RPG-7s do not grow on trees in Somalia. I hazard to guess an RPG on the black market is also a great expense to anyone who isn't being given one by one of these groups connected to the arms trade in effort to advance their goals or position in some way.

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They cost under $500/launcher: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/one-for-history-books...

$300/launcher here: https://www.un.org/depts/los/nippon/unnff_programme_home/fel...

A decade ago it wasn't terrorist groups funding them.

Seems cheap to you and me but that is about the full annual income of someone from somalia. It isn't realistic for an individual to purchase one without external support.

> full annual income of someone from somalia.

Not if they seize a cargo ship it isn't. Criminals can afford the tools to commit crimes by using those tools to commit crimes.

> The level of ordinance is enough evidence that there is significant outside support.

"I have no evidence, but I can't think of other scenarios so it must be true!"

Well it isn't like you can do very much hunting with an RPG-7. Its purpose is to destroy material that you cannot with small arm fire and that sort of limits the intended purpose and customer.

Well why do you think they want to raid these ships? To buy more RPG-7s, of course!

But seriously, if they were being funded by other groups, why pirate in the first place?

Same reasons as the context of this photo (1). One party would like to advance some geopolitical interest, another party is willing to do it if they are paid and supported as such. No different than any other business deal.

1. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/Reagan_s...

Is there any evidence of this? Why would pirates not advance this claim?

I think it's much more likely it's just easy money and is relatively cheap to pull off.

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