So the US-made rifles were stolen from the Kuwaiti military that maintained an unguarded warehouse. I see. Since AK’s are generally available to al Qaeda for about $50/ea., I’m curious who the eventual recipients of these weapons is. I’m guessing they wont be showing up at Wally World.
The weapons were obviously sold by corrupt officers. The war in Syria will take all the weapons you can send in; also, Iraq and Afghanistan will absorb a lot more. Africa will gladly take more weapons than you can offer, and African warlords have lots of money (from piracy, from diamonds, etc.)
Even if each M-16 is sold for the same $50 as a poorly made AK, it becomes a million dollars. More than enough money in that to pay the Kuwaiti officer who failed to order the warehouse guarded. But those rifles are more accurate than a generic AK, so they will find use among longer distance operators, and the price can be easily $500 and higher. The profit from the theft suddenly becomes $10M, and it's very good money for sending a few trucks into an unguarded and unmonitored warehouse.