Feral Jundi

     The most dangerous enemy snipers proved to be the insurgents who mimicked the Washington, D.C.-area snipers who terrorized our nation’s capital in 2002 by firing from the concealment of a car. Cruising the streets of Baghdad, Mosul and other towns, these mobile sniper teams sought G.I.s manning roadside checkpoints, fixed security posts and sitting in armored vehicle cupolas. As quickly as they fired, the insurgent riflemen disappeared into urban traffic. Some sniping vehicles carried extra license plates, phony taxi markings and secret compartments for stowing a sniper rifle. Insurgent Web sites boasted that quick reaction forces arrived too late to catch them.

     Because al-Qaeda paid the gunmen up to $5,000 per kill, the mobile snipers documented their engagements on videotape, the spotter serving as both observer and videographer.

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   This is a fantastic article, and kind of rare. The sniper guru talks about insurgent tactics and how we stopped them. If you would like to further expand your knowledge on how our guys did it, Plaster added a whole new chapter in his book dedicated to the current war.  Not only is he famous for his books and lectures on sniping, but he is also a veteran of MACV SOG during the Vietnam War and certainly a living legend.

   Why is this significant?  To me, SOG was probably the most daring and most innovative unit to come out of the Vietnam War, and I put them right on par with the Selous Scouts. Both units had to be masters of their environment and of their task, because both had to operate behind enemy lines.  They also had to operate in other countries, which made the advent of getting caught even more dangerous and extremely embarrassing to their home countries. I look at the Pakistan problem in today’s war as the same dilemma.

    Al Qaeda has no problem exploiting the borders of sovereign nations, and that is how they are able to survive and grow.  It is an aspect of this war that will most certainly have to be fought by covert warriors for a very long time, and in some very dangerous places.

   But back to this article.  Mr. Plaster mentioned one thing that caught my eye.  Al Qaeda introduced free market warfare into their strategy, and the end result was some pretty dangerous and innovative sniper teams.  Please note the quote up top. –Matt

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Winning the Sniper War in Iraq

A war within a war.

By Maj. John L. Plaster, USAR (Ret.)

As an American military convoy rumbled along a dusty street in Habbaniyah, Iraq, 50 miles west of Baghdad, a silver van eased to the curb. Preoccupied with operating their heavy trucks, the U.S. Marine drivers didn’t notice the van and its civilian occupants.

Fortunately the convoy was overwatched by guardian angels: a Marine sniper and his spotter atop a nearby roof. Alerted by his spotter, the Marine marksman shifted his 10X optic to the silver van—and discovered the driver videotaping the convoy while his passenger raised a scoped rifle! As one, the Marine sniper and his spotter fired, shooting dead the cameraman and his sniping partner. By itself this was a dramatic accomplishment, but there was more: Pried from the dead terrorist’s hands was a Marine-issue M40A3 sniper rifle—taken from a Marine sniper killed by insurgents in August 2005. It was now back where it belonged.

The Habbaniyah engagement was a limited but significant milestone in this unnoticed war-within-a-war, a quiet triumph of skill and courage, strategy and technology, which yielded a victory as great as that of British snipers who wrested domination of the World War I trenches from Germany’s snipers in 1915.

An Asymmetrical Conflict

Iraqi military snipers appeared occasionally during the 2003 invasion, but afterward—like the rest of their army—they shed their uniforms and faded away. By the end of that year, some Saddam loyalists and a few al-Qaeda terrorists sometimes sniped at American troops but not in a coordinated way. The following year, however, attacks increased while insurgents concentrated by the thousands in Fallujah, daring the U.S. military to attack their enclave. That November, U.S. Marines and soldiers assaulted Fallujah, teaching a bloody lesson: directly fighting America’s military meant inevitable and total defeat. Thus, al-Qaeda and its allies turned away from direct confrontation to “asymmetric,” or disproportionate, warfare to inflict casualties at low risk. This new strategy involved car bombs and Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), along with snipers in considerable numbers.

The terrorist snipers’ tactics proved as extreme as their philosophy. Unencumbered by international law, insurgent snipers hid themselves in civilian clothes, took cover behind human shields, fired from mosques and escaped in ambulances. With a seemingly endless supply of sniper rifles and thousands of American targets, these hit-and-run terrorists could strike anywhere. American quick-reaction forces rushed to such scenes, but most often the enemy snipers simply dumped their rifles and blended into the neighborhood. They seemed nearly impossible to kill or capture.

U.S. Sniping Successes

While insurgent sniper attacks grew, U.S. Army and Marine snipers were proving their own against the insurgents. Marine Sgt. Joshua Clark and Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Jeff Pursley, for example, observed two vehicles halt at night to plant a bomb inside a junked car. While the insurgents unrolled detonation wires, the American snipers crept forward and fired, forcing several insurgents to flee, capturing one.

U.S. Army snipers from the 3rd Infantry Division’s “Shadow Team” sniper detachment, led by Staff Sgt. Jim Gilliland, hid for 18 hours near Ramadi to stop IED-planters in a similar fashion, firing just three shots to down three terrorists.

Another sniper team led by Marine Staff Sgt. Steve Reichert spotted a dead animal just ahead of a Marine patrol, with wires running from its carcass. After alerting his fellow Marines, Reichert turned his .50 BMG Barrett rifle toward an insurgent machine gunner, striking him down at 1,775 yards—more than a full mile.

In another incident, a Marine sniper rushed to the aid of Marines taking fire from an insurgent concealed behind an automobile. The American sniper fired his heavy Barrett .50-cal. completely through the parked automobile, killing the terrorist.

In Fallujah, Marine Sgt. John Ethan Place demonstrated skill and technique on par with the best snipers in Marine history. The 22-year-old sniper scored 32 confirmed kills in only 13 days and was awarded the Silver Star.

Sgt. Herbert Hancock, chief scout-sniper with the 1st Battalion, 23rd Marine Regiment and a full-time Texas SWAT police sniper, and his teammate, Cpl. Geoffrey Flowers, spotted two black-robed insurgents manning a 120 mm mortar. Hancock laid his crosshair on one man, dropped him, then ran his bolt and got the second, too. The distance: an impressive 1,050 yards. An even farther long-range shot was fired by Marine Cpl. Matt Orth, who took out a terrorist 1,256 yards away.Targeting U.S. SnipersWith such impressive achievements by U.S. troops, al-Qaeda and its affiliated terror groups called upon their comrades to target U.S. sniper teams. In the first resulting incident, a sniper team from the 1st Cavalry Division led by Lt. Eric Johnson was mass-attacked at night on outpost duty near the Baghdad airport. Despite three gunshot wounds, Johnson and his men survived.

Two months later, in Ramadi, 20 miles west of Baghdad, two dozen insurgents overran a sniper position, killing four Marines and videotaping their stripped bodies for distribution to the Internet and Al Jazeera television. Later, again in Ramadi, an eight-man Marine sniper element was blasted by a remote-control bomb, killing two and seriously wounding several others. Near Haditha, 140 miles northwest of Baghdad, two Marine sniper teams were ambushed and killed, again with video footage provided to Al Jazeera TV.

From one such incident arose the most highly decorated sniper team of the war. On Aug. 27, 2007, near Samarra, a four-man sniper team from the 82nd Airborne Division suddenly found its rooftop outpost mass-assaulted by 40 foreign al-Qaeda fighters. Outnumbered 10-to-one, it was a 10-minute fight for their lives, in which two paratroopers died. A year later, at Fort Bragg, N.C., President George W. Bush presented Distinguished Service Crosses—our nation’s second-highest decoration—to the two snipers who had held their ground, Sgt. Chris Corriveau, from Lewiston, Maine, and Sgt. Eric Moser, of Tomball, Texas. Together, they had accounted for an estimated 15 enemy killed, and more wounded.

CopycatsThe most dangerous enemy snipers proved to be the insurgents who mimicked the Washington, D.C.-area snipers who terrorized our nation’s capital in 2002 by firing from the concealment of a car. Cruising the streets of Baghdad, Mosul and other towns, these mobile sniper teams sought G.I.s manning roadside checkpoints, fixed security posts and sitting in armored vehicle cupolas. As quickly as they fired, the insurgent riflemen disappeared into urban traffic. Some sniping vehicles carried extra license plates, phony taxi markings and secret compartments for stowing a sniper rifle. Insurgent Web sites boasted that quick reaction forces arrived too late to catch them.

Because al-Qaeda paid the gunmen up to $5,000 per kill, the mobile snipers documented their engagements on videotape, the spotter serving as both observer and videographer. Soon, al-Qaeda began posting the videotaped shootings on Web sites and distributing them to foreign media. At the same time, enemy propagandists created the myth of an omnipotent sniper named Juba. Successful sniping attacks were attributed to Juba, while failures or incidents in which an insurgent sniper was killed were not. Juba was everywhere and infallible, enemy posters declared.

At the height of this propaganda offensive, I appeared on CNN International with correspondent Michael Ware. We were seen live in Baghdad. Deflating enemy claims, I dismissed Juba as a myth and pointed out the propaganda misrepresentations in insurgent videos. Two days later, upset by my comments, the al-Qaeda sniper chief in Baghdad appeared on Al Jazeera to mock me by name and boast of his snipers’ achievements.

Not long after the sniper chief uttered my name, I was invited by the U.S. Army’s Asymmetric Warfare Office to a counter-sniping conference at the Pentagon where we discussed strategies and techniques to defeat the insurgent snipers. Analyzing dozens of enemy sniping videos, I’d determined that virtually all the engagements were at ground level, rarely more than 150 yards, and that most insurgent shooters were aboard vehicles, “hiding” in background clutter across busy streets, intersections and traffic circles. In almost every instance, I noted, the G.I. victims were targets of opportunity at Traffic Control Points or near halted American vehicles, and they lacked optics suitable for spotting their attackers. Already, much was being done to counter sniper attacks. Fort Meade’s Asymmetric Warfare Group prepared an excellent sniper awareness brochure to distribute in Iraq. Along with other experts, I urged the widespread distribution of optics among deployed units to better detect sniper vehicles before they fired, and a counter-tactic of not waiting for a reaction force, but immediately and aggressively rushing any sniper who fired at American forces, whether with four men or 400.

Countering Al-Qaeda’s GunmenIn Iraq, many Americans were surviving sniper attacks because their latest generation of body armor and Kevlar helmets could withstand the bullets from full-power 7.62×54 mm R rounds. Dozens, if not hundreds, of soldiers and Marines walked away from what could have been a lethal wound with only a painful bruise. Knowing insurgent snipers preferred to engage stationary targets, G.I.s never quite stood still, practicing the “Baghdad shuffle.” Armored vehicle cupolas were soon surrounded by bullet-resistant glass, and U.S. bases were ringed by concrete barriers and anti-sniper fencing.

American technology responded, too, with an effective sniper bullet detection system called Boomerang. Mounted in a Humvee, this computer-linked acoustic sensor separated the signature of a passing bullet from background noise and tracked it to its related muzzle blast. The system’s computerized voice then announced, for example, “Rifle shot, 239 meters, 2 o’clock.” By 2007, some 4,000 Boomerang systems had deployed to Iraq, with another 4,000 destined for there and Afghanistan.

Both the Army and Marine Corps increased their sniper slots and expanded their sniper schools, calling upon veteran snipers to instruct the students. Thousands of M14 rifles were removed from storage, accurized and topped with scopes to outfit platoon-level designated marksmen. Even at squad-level, the services added a Squad Designated Marksman, arming him with a specially accurized M16 and optical sight. Deploying units received realistic counter-sniper training while Iraq-bound snipers attended short shooting clinics. (I instructed one such preparatory course at Fort Hood, Texas, for the fine young snipers of the Army’s 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment.)

Thus, thousands of additional guardian angels with rifles arrived in Iraq to support their units and add more scoped rifles to the nationwide sniper hunt. In a classic case, a 1st Cavalry Division sniper, Staff Sgt. Jeff Young, exploited the sun’s shifting rays to pinpoint a hidden Iraqi sniper. “We got lucky when the sun was going down,” he told Stars and Stripes. “It hit his scope at the right angle and we got a glare in our direction so we engaged it.”

Another Army sniper, Sgt. Randall Davis, twice defeated opposing snipers, engaging them from a rooftop in Samarra. Firing an accurized M14 rifle, he patiently out-waited an Iraqi sniper who had fired upon Americans three days earlier. When the Iraqi reappeared, Davis’ keen eyes picked him out. Davis eliminated another Iraqi sniper with a 750-yard shot with a Barrett .50-cal. rifle.

Some snipers defeated enemy snipers well beyond their “book” maximum range. U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Jim Gilliland scored the longest counter-sniper engagement in Iraq with a 7.62×51 mm NATO rifle. When Gilliland and his spotter, Sgt. Bryan Pruett, learned an insurgent sniper had shot a fellow G.I., they focused their optics on a hospital a dozen blocks away. Detecting the insurgent in a window, the distance was so great1,375 yards—that Gilliland had to set his scope’s elevation to maximum and still hold high to make the hit. Gilliland and his 10-man Shadow Team were credited with shooting 276 insurgents, with more than 50 felled by Gilliland, alone.

Conventional infantrymen, too, took their toll by aggressively reacting to insurgent snipers and mobile shooting platforms. Soldiers with Lt. Richard Hawkins’ platoon in the 101st Airborne Division rushed two SVD-armed snipers and ran them to ground, killing one and capturing the other. Likewise, 25th Infantry Division soldiers in Mosul did the same, running down and killing a sniper. In Bab al-Shariq, alert American troops spotted two mobile shooting platforms—one a modified automobile, the other a garbage truck carrying a Sudanese terrorist with a suppressed pistol—and quickly cornered and captured the drivers and terrorists.

Adding to this effort for the first time, crime scene investigation (CSI) went to war. Operating under the motto, “Defeat Snipers Through Science,” an Army forensics investigation unit opened for business in Baghdad in December 2006. Applying CSI’s full spectrum of investigative tools, technicians studied the rifling on bullets, recovered fingerprints off arms and cartridges and magazines and vehicles, identified DNA samples from cigarette butts and examined gunpowder residue on suspected gunmen’s cheeks. Within 18 months, the forensics lab had processed evidence from more than 1,800 shooting incidents, resulting in 150 biometric IDs of suspected shooters. Combining this forensics data with other intelligence, it was possible to identify specific snipers and publish their faces on wanted posters, along with generous rewards.

This was no small effort. In the case of three particular insurgent snipers, some 1 million wanted posters were printed and air-dropped by a U.S. Air Force C-130, blanketing the town where they were believed to be hiding. “Within hours of the drop,” explained Air Force Lt. Col. Elizabeth Kavanagh, “reports were received of individuals arriving at Iraqi police stations with leaflets in hand.”

Thanks to this forensic evidence, American soldiers and Marines also knew who to watch for when deploying into certain areas. When soldiers from the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division arrived in Aby Salman, unit snipers recognized a man riding past on a bicycle—it was a wanted al-Qaeda sniper, undoubtedly scouting their location. Proactively, they nabbed him before he was even close to firing a shot.

Paralleling these efforts, U.S. Army Special Forces and elite Iraqi National Police went after the enemy’s sniper infrastructure, targeting planners, trainers, paymasters and arms smugglers. Their biggest catch was Ali Musa Daqduq, a Lebanese Hezbollah leader who’d infiltrated Iraq for the secretive Quds Force, a special branch of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. A veteran of 24 years with the Hezbollah terrorists, Daqduq had been funding and arming Iraqi special group snipers and coordinating their training inside Iran. All across Iraq, similar Special Forces operations took down safehouses and the enemy leadership, eroding the sniping effort’s base of support.

Amid the summer 2007 troop surge, the counter-sniping program reached a tipping point thanks to this combination of efforts. The enemy could no longer recruit, train and arm its snipers at the same pace they were being killed and apprehended. In 2007 the U.S. Army had tallied almost 300 enemy sniper attacks in Iraq, with 30 incidents in October, alone. Within a year that number had dwindled by two-thirds, thanks to effective counter-sniper efforts. And since then? Quoting U.S. military officials, Jane’s Defense magazine reported “such [sniping] reports for 2009 have since all but disappeared.”

Story here.