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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....

A Michigan weapons company is under fire for branding thousands of rifle scopes used by U.S. soldiers and Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan with passages from the Bible. U.S. military rules prohibit any service member from proselytizing while serving in Iraq or Afghanistan, which are primarily Muslim nations. Trijicon, a sighting manufacturer based in Wixom, Mich., has several multimillion-dollar contracts with the Pentagon to make sights. Along with the sight's stock number, there are coded Bible passages from the New Testament engraved on the sights. One reads JN8:12, an apparent reference to John 8:12, which says, "Whoever follows me will...

The Marine Corps earned bragging rights during the 9th annual U.S. Army International Sniper Competition at Fort Benning, Ga., last week, when Leathernecks from the Corps' Scout Sniper School (West) in Camp Pendleton, Calif., claimed the title of top marksmen.

SAHL SINJAR, Iraq, Aug. 28, 2009 – Marine Corps snipers and designated marksmen have been operating across the vast Iraqi deserts since the outbreak of hostilities in 2003. As with all units operating in Iraq, past and present, they have found themselves evolving to meet the changing needs of the Iraqi military and political landscape. Small teams of snipers are finding reasons to venture into the constantly shifting environment that exists in a place referred to simply as “outside the wire.” “Working with previously gathered information, we gather additional intelligence and conduct operations watching over possible insurgent hot spots, caches...

U.S. Navy snipers opened fire and killed three pirates holding an American captain at gunpoint, delivering the skipper unharmed and ending a five-day high-seas hostage drama on Easter Sunday. The pirates were pointing AK-47s at Capt. Richard Phillips and he was in "imminent danger" of being killed when the commander of the nearby USS Bainbridge made the split-second decision to order his men to shoot, Vice Adm. Bill Gortney said.

Snipers or assassins could be spotted in their nests before even firing a shot thanks to laser surveillance technology to be unveiled in Britain. European and U.S. companies are accelerating research into anti-sniper defences in response to threats in Afghanistan and Iraq and at home. But most systems use acoustic or thermal sensors that depend on waiting for the first shot. An alternative developed by the European aerospace group EADS aims to warn of attack and pinpoint the sniper before he pulls the trigger by bouncing light off his telescopic sight. 'It is the same principle as 'cat's eyes' in...

Two Middleburgh men are on a mission to commemorate a local hero and re-create a historic landmark. Former Middleburgh Mayor Gary Hayes and Jay Lawyer are seeking legislative funding to restore the Middle Fort and build a monument to Revolutionary War hero Timothy Murphy. Hayes and Lawyer have collected letters of support from all the towns and villages in Schoharie County and the Mohawk Valley Heritage Corridor Commission and have contacted Assemblyman Peter Lopez, state Sen. James Seward, U.S. Rep. Michael McNulty and Sen. Hillary Clinton. Hayes said Murphy is credited with firing the single shot that ended the Battle...

THEY had been waiting since before dawn, dug into a makeshift hide, almost half a mile behind enemy lines. The four Royal Marine Commando snipers sat huddled in the dark, scouring a Taleban compound through the scopes on their L96A1 sniper rifles. They had been watching the target since before dawn. The order to fire came an hour after first light. They levelled their bolt-action, single-shot rifles at two Taleban sentries less than 250 metres away. Village dogs were barking but the insurgents never saw their killers. The marines counted down from five, in unison, and the crack of four...

U.S. intelligence agencies have built their own version of the famous Russian-designed AK-47 assault rifle for use by American snipers in Iraq. The snipers are firing at one form of deadly insurgent and terrorist attack, the so-called "spray and pray" method used by those who try to sow terror by emerging from hiding and firing a machine gun randomly into crowds. The special U.S. snipers have used .50-caliber long-range rifles for killing terrorists. Now, they are using the modified AK-47s to kill insurgents without a normal shot to the head. Instead, snipers are killing insurgents with shots to the heart,...

RAMADI, Iraq – He was 5 when he first fired an M-16, his father holding him to brace against the recoil. At 17 he enlisted in the Marine Corps, spurred by the memory of Sept. 11. Now, 21-year-old Galen Wilson has 20 confirmed kills in four months in Iraq – and another 40 shots that probably killed insurgents. One afternoon the lance corporal downed a man hauling a grenade launcher 5½ football fields away. Wilson is the designated marksman in a company of Marines based in downtown Ramadi, watching over what Marines call the most dangerous neighborhood in the most...

Combat Diary: The Marines of Lima Company® “Combat Diary: The Marines of Lima Company ” Rated: TVPG Running Time: 120 Minutes Genre: Movies Closed Captions: Yes Upcoming Airings: Thursday, May 25 @ 9pm/8C Friday, May 26 @ 1am/12C Saturday, May 27 @ 8pm/7C Sunday, May 28 @ 12am/11C Sunday, May 28 @ 1pm/12C Monday, May 29 @ 8am/7C Monday, May 29 @ 2pm/1C Saturday, June 03 @ 11am/10C Search for other upcoming episodes Featuring candid interviews and never-before-seen video, we tell the story of the hardest hit combat unit of the Iraq war. Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines, a...

USMC Sniper stops insurgents from 950 yards http://www.marines.mil/marinelink/m...58?opendocument FALLUJAH, Iraq (Nov. 27, 2004) -- A U.S. Marine sniper waited patiently inside a one-story house deep within the city. Lying in the prone position for several hours, he scanned the area through his scope before he finally found the three insurgents responsible for two previous mortar attacks. Sgt. Memo M. Sandoval, a platoon sergeant with Scout Sniper Platoon, Headquarters and Service Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, needed to positively identify the insurgents before he could take his shot. Sandoval, 26, saw that one of the men was about to place...