A video going around the interwebs shows a child in Libya shooting an RPG while two adults and the cameraman watch. A man helps steady the launcher on the boys shoulder, which is longer than he is tall, before stepping back and letting him fire it towards the sea in an upwards trajectory.

The BBC report …

The young boy looks tiny as he stands on a beach, places an RPG on his shoulder and fires. There’s a huge bang and smoke billows all around. All the while two adults look on and encourage him.

It’s unclear who the boy or the adults are. The video itself has been posted multiple times. Though it’s being widely viewed now, it appears to have been first posted at least as far back as January.

Though some of the postings refer to it as a “Palestinian child firing an RPG on Gaza Beach”, it actually appears to be from Libya. The accents in the video are Libyan, and some have suggested it may have been on a beach in the Sirte area.

Libyans have taken to Twitter to voice their condemnation describing the scene as “insane” and a “glimpse of our future.

The launcher looks like a RPG-7 or clone and the grenade launched looks like your standard PG-7V (or clone) HEAT round.  The PG-7 round is armed by removing the fuze cover, which sits over the nose and is held in place with a pin. Apparently it is rated for a 3 meter fall. My understanding, and correct me if I am wrong, but if the child dropped the muzzle and fired the grenade into the soft sand, and even if the fuze cover protected the fuze, the grenade would still self-detonate after 4-5 seconds.

Thanks to Trevor the tip.