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It was recently revealed that, last November, a British sniper (corporal Craig Harrison) set a new distance record when he killed two Taliban in Afghanistan, at a range of 2,620 meters (8,596 feet). He did this with a L115A3 rifle firing the 8.6mm Lapua Magnum round. The previous record was held by a Canadian soldier, corporal Rob Furlong, who dropped an al Qaeda gunman at 2,573 meters (7,972 feet) in 2002, also in Afghanistan. Furlong, however, was using a 12.7mm (.50 caliber) rifle. These weapons are good at 2,000 meters or more, but weigh twice as much as the 6.8...

A British Army sharp shooter has told how he killed five Taliban soldiers in 28 seconds - in a desperate bid to protect a British patrol that the insurgents were preparing to ambush. The enemy targets were more than a mile away when the sniper, a corporal serving with 4 Rifles, got the all clear to take them out. The corporal - who has 37 confirmed kills in just four months in the war zone - said that he and his spotter were set up in an old fort in Haji Alem, in the Nad-e Ali district of Helmand province....

Unveiled: The new supergun weapon against the Taliban can kill from over a mile away Last updated at 16:52pm on 07.03.08   It is the latest weapon on the front line against the Taliban - the British Army's most powerful-ever sniper rifle, capable of killing with pinpoint accuracy from more than a mile away. Yesterday the Army showed off its new Long Range Rifle, which has just entered service with combat units in Afghanistan to replace smaller and less powerful weapons. The £11million upgrade programme is part of a "renaissance" of the sniper tradition - which during the Cold...