back to article Aussie bike bandits may be packing rocket launchers

An Australian army captain sold military rocket launchers to underworld arms dealers, according to police in New South Wales, Australia. The Herald Sun reports that Australian feds and state cops swooped in a series of dawn raids yesterday, nabbing the officer and a former colleague. A 63-year-old woman was also arrested. …

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  1. Dillon Pyron

    SWAT vans?

    I don't know if Australia has SWAT, although I suspect it does. Are SWAT vans armored? I suspect not. How would that go over on the 11 o'clock news? "20 highly trained officers killed in single attack". Or shooting one into the lobby of a major government building? (they were used against building, remember) LAWs are still a potent weapon. Of course, they can still detread an M1 or Chieftan.

    dillon in Tejas, who used to work on the Javelin, a real tank killer

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Thunder down under

    Australia has special-forces units attached to police and paramilitary divisions, including the SAS, but the names of these vary from state to state and aren't common knowledge. Discovery of the missing rocket launchers would certainly prompt responses from these units and probably from the mainstream military as well.

    Nobody here doubts that those rocket launchers are in the hands of bike gangs rather than jihadists, since that's where most illegal ordnance in this country ends up. What's more concerning for the powers that be is the relative lack of conflict between the various gangs here (mainly the Hell's Angels, Gypsy Jokers, Warlords and Finks don't cross each others' paths here much, but the Rebels are another matter entirely). Our Prime Minister, John Howard, seems intent on turning Australia into the 51st state of America, a policy that does NOT sit well with the general public. America is not popular here in Australia, and there are many who speculate that should Howard attempt the final sell-out, Australia could well see its own version of Bastille Day - led by the bike gangs. Our government is not blind to this potential, and has been putting laws into place to try to combat this menace without openly stating that preventing an armed insurrection is what this is really about. The "terrorism" excuse is wearing very thin, however, and politics in Australia could get very interesting over the next few years...

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