British Army Sniper Takes Out A Half Dozen Taliban Fighters With Single Shot


A British sniper managed to kill six members of the Taliban with a single shot, according to reports.

The sniper, a Lance Corporal with the British Army’s Coldstream Guards according to the Telegraph, shot a suicide bomber at 930 yards using an Accuracy International AWM (Arctic Warfare Magnum), designated L115A3, the same rifle used in the longest recorded sniper kill in history. Upon being hit, the suicide bomber’s vest detonated, killing five others who were caught in the blast.

According to the Guardian, the kill in question took place in December in Kakaran, southern Afghanistan, and was only recently disclosed by the Ministry of Defense, as the British Army prepares to withdraw at the end of the year. Several hundred British and Afghan soldiers were carrying out an operation in December when they were engaged in a gun battle with 15 to 20 insurgents, per the Telegraph.

“The guy was wearing a vest. He was identified by the sniper moving down a tree line and coming up over a ditch,” said Lieutenant Colonel Richard Slack, commanding officer of 9/12 Royal Lancers, via the Telegraph. “He had a shawl on. It rose up and the sniper saw he had a machine gun.”

They were in contact and he was moving to a firing position. The sniper engaged him and the guy exploded. There was a pause on the radio and the sniper said ‘I think I’ve just shot a suicide bomber.’ The rest of them were killed in the blast.

The unidentified 20-year-old sniper is also credited with killing a Taliban machine gunner from 1,465 yards as the first shot of his tour of duty, according to the Telegraph. Lt Col Slack said another suicide vest, with 44 lbs. of explosives, was found nearby, indicating the operation had prevented a major Taliban attack.

The sniper incident comes as the number of battles the British Army faces in Afghanistan has begun to decline. Control of three bases was handed over last month and Afghan forces are now reportedly leading 97 per cent of the security operations across the country.

What do you think of the British sniper’s marksmanship? Is this the new benchmark, replacing “two birds with one stone”?

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