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Comment by gruez | Hacker News Reader

>The near complete absence of cell phone videos of AGTM attacks from that war is a massive tip-off it clear that they don't have a nation state sugar daddy paying the bill (in contrast with groups in Syria).

I don't get it, are cell phone videos hard to get a hold of without "a nation state sugar daddy paying the bill"? The other explanation is that Syria has a much higher GDP per capita ($6,373) than Afghanistan ($2,474), so the populace is more likely to have cell phones which means more footage of AGTM strikes.

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The article clearly states that Russian, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia governments are giving possibly up to 500 million a year and about half as much is given by private donors originating mostly with sympathizers from gulf states so the GP's arguments about no sugar daddy doesn't hold up.

His point is they can't afford the AGTMs, not the cell phones. AGTMs are expensive, and the Taliban can't afford it.

If those figures are anywhere close to being real it’s not about money but about logistics.

All it means is that they don’t have a sponsor or at least a major one that provides them with sophisticated weapons, during the last civil war the Taliban rode into Kabul on soviet tanks.

Syria had tons of weapons to steal, so did Iraq and parties like Iran transferred arms including ATGMs to non state actors involved in the conflict.

ATGMs also may not be as useful in a mountainous country like Afghanistan.

Right now the Taliban is riding in HMMWVs at least the Americans didn’t give the Afghans M1 Abrams tanks like they did with the Iraqis, Kata'ib Hezbollah and ISIL are rolling in M1’s these days in Syria as they managed to “liberate” them from the Iraqi forces.

People overestimate just how easy it is to secure weapons, especially sophisticated ones without a local source. Most illegal arms are those which are bought legally and then transferred illegally or are stolen from those who bought them legally.

This means you need either a local adversary or a local ally that has ATGMs in sufficient quantities to get your hands on them, without that even Nick Cage won’t get you your Kornets.

>ATGMs also may not be as useful in a mountainous country like Afghanistan.

They are amazingly useful because you can hit a truck or a group of people miles away way more effectively than with gunfire and way more accurately than with mortar fire. You do this when you have nation states giving you their old stuff. When you have to pay your own way you reserve the ATGMs for actual tanks and whatnot.

Look at the videos out of Syria. That's exactly how they're used.

>ATGMs also may not be as useful in a mountainous country like Afghanistan.

If nation states had serious interest in this conflict "local sources" would materialize like they did in Syria. All those TOWs those guys use didn't come from Iraq.

Videos in Syria are usually from flat and open terrain, NLOS ATGMs aren’t common even with modern militaries.

The TOWs in Syria did come from Iraq, the Kornets came from Iran.

There is also the possibility that the Taliban after fighting the Americans for nearly 2 decades also has pretty good opsec they know that the US tracks phones even when they are out of cellular range and in general they came to believe that pretty much anything with a battery can somehow be tracked by a drone with a SIG/MASINT pod and they are probably not that far off.

Looking at both photographs and some battlefield photos they use plenty of man portable rocket systems like RPG-29 and 32.

Guided systems are more complex, heavier and usually require a team to operate. Hauling them on foot in the mountains isn’t ideal and their range is limited since these are still WLOS system at that point they offer no real advantage over RPGs and other unguided weapons.

Also keep in mind that the fighters in Afghanistan are far more likely to be illiterate which means they aren’t likely to be using sophisticated weapons that aren’t point and shoot not to mention mobile phones.

Syria had both a much more modern population to recruit from and far more foreign fighters than Afghanistan has now.

Looking at their weapons and tactics since post 9/11 if indeed they aren’t using ATGMs at the same prevalence as say Syria there are far better explanations than they can’t afford them.

Ah okay, I was thinking the AGTMs were being launched by US/NATO.

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