just minutes ago........

Was watching tv news and spotted a #4 Enfield perched on the shoulder of a "rebel" walking down the road near Tripoli. Whenever I see reports on the little war going on over there I'm always on the lookout for Enfields but never truly expected to see one. My wife thought I had gone off the deep end when I reacted to seeing the rifle. Was Libya one of the middle eastern countries that had a supply of Enfields? Possibly some storage area still has a few crates of them? Also noticed a fn fal or a copy with wooden buttstock which would be an oldie too. At any rate the Enfields are still out there doing their thing.

Libya was the scene of several battles during WWII. It would not be unusual for some of these rifles to be picked up on a battlefield by the Native people.

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Libya was ruled by the pro-British King Idris until Gaddafi GDuck's 1969 coup and large areas were used by the British army for exercises . It's not surprising that Libya was supplied with British arms in the '50s.

Saw picture of a rebel showing a Webley & Scott flare gun from WWI in todays newspaper.

YEAAAH...Um, Can You say Major Battles in that part of the world During WW2. An Enfield would be no surprise. That and I am sure that all sorts of stuff is being pumped into the rebels from all over.....

Il find some pictures but I have a pic of a MG 42 from WW2 at a Iraqi check point I saw in Iraq in 2006. I also found a Enfeild in peices. I cant explain that one.

There was a doco on nat geo a few years back where a reporter was imbedded with some coalition troops in iraq. Their standard issue heavy machine gun was an Mg 42. Can't remember which nation they were from but im thinking Albania? Was a good doco with plenty of action in it. I can remember the MG 42 letting fly with a few rounds during a firefight. Good stuff.

May have been Romanian troops come to think of it.

Pablo, I would be surprised if those were original mg-42's, more likely the mg3. It still looks the same, but a modified design.

I watched a documentary about the recent Afghanistan conflict and one weapon captured was a No.1 Mk. III. The British have occupied/had control over just about everywhere in the mid east at some point or another.

There was a picture in today's London Evening Standard of two Libyan rebels and I noted one of them had a No.4. I'd guess it was a reserve weapon looted from an armoury.

Various sorts of British weapons got sold to that part of the world after WWII. For example, I believe my Lanchester SMG came from Egypt.

The nations that ended up with loads of Lanchesters, such as Egypt and the South Americans got them as part of the complete package when they purchased ex Royal Navy ships. I saw one with a letter/number combination that someone deciphered to indicated that it was originally on a destroyer(?) HMS Cadiz. It came with an Australian bayonet, They'd obviously been together for a long time because a) it was jammed on solid and literally immoveable and b) was in the same crap condition as the Egyptian(?) Lanchester!