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In this cat-and-mouse war, the sniper is king
By Gethin Chamberlain, with the Black Watch, near Basra
31 March 2003
It was the tank crew who spotted them first, four men in civilian clothing jumping out of the back of a pick-up truck carrying a rocket-propelled grenade launcher in the heart of Zubayr.
Corporal Mark Harvey was the first of the snipers to react, dropping to his knee and fixing the man carrying the RPG in his sights, one shot, a moving target, the militia man dropping like a stone, dead before he hit the ground. A clean shot to the head.
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For the snipers, it was a rare moment of hand-to-hand fighting, the closest they had been to an enemy they normally only saw through the telescopic sights bound in dusty rags fixed atop their rifles, the long muzzles masked by more scraps of cloth, the better to prevent the glint of metal which would give their position away.
Eight days of lying in the dirt, crouched on rooftops, waiting to pick off the militia men who slipped from building to building, emerging out of the dark to fire their RPGs then disappear back into the mass of houses that make up this troublesome town.
The snipers had feared they would play little part in the battles to be fought in an open desert war, but as the Iraqi soldiers threw away their uniforms and ran back into the towns and the militia men became the true enemy, they came into their own.
In this cat-and-mouse war, the sniper was king.
Eight days and 17 kills.
This is a pooled despatch from Gethin Chamberlain of 'The Scotsman'.
In this cat-and-mouse war, the sniper is king
By Gethin Chamberlain, with the Black Watch, near Basra
31 March 2003
It was the tank crew who spotted them first, four men in civilian clothing jumping out of the back of a pick-up truck carrying a rocket-propelled grenade launcher in the heart of Zubayr.
Corporal Mark Harvey was the first of the snipers to react, dropping to his knee and fixing the man carrying the RPG in his sights, one shot, a moving target, the militia man dropping like a stone, dead before he hit the ground. A clean shot to the head.
>>
For the snipers, it was a rare moment of hand-to-hand fighting, the closest they had been to an enemy they normally only saw through the telescopic sights bound in dusty rags fixed atop their rifles, the long muzzles masked by more scraps of cloth, the better to prevent the glint of metal which would give their position away.
Eight days of lying in the dirt, crouched on rooftops, waiting to pick off the militia men who slipped from building to building, emerging out of the dark to fire their RPGs then disappear back into the mass of houses that make up this troublesome town.
The snipers had feared they would play little part in the battles to be fought in an open desert war, but as the Iraqi soldiers threw away their uniforms and ran back into the towns and the militia men became the true enemy, they came into their own.
In this cat-and-mouse war, the sniper was king.
Eight days and 17 kills.
This is a pooled despatch from Gethin Chamberlain of 'The Scotsman'.
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