Posted on 07/12/2003 6:49:49 PM PDT by youknow
Trained killer stalks US troops By Peter Wilson, Baghdad July 12, 2003 A HIGHLY trained assassin is stalking American soldiers on the streets of Baghdad, according to the most senior US military commander in Iraq.
General Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of the Joint Coalition Taskforce for Iraq, confirmed the operations of the hitman, whose activities had been rumoured on the streets of the capital for weeks.
"This is a very well-trained assassin who knows how to identify his target. He knows how and when to attack and when to escape. There is no doubt in my mind this is a professional," he said.
Of the 65 US soldiers who have died since President George W. Bush declared a cessation of hostilities on May 1, 31 have been killed by hostile action and about half a dozen may have been killed by the main assassin, who has been nicknamed "The Hunter" by many Iraqis.
The early killings attributed to "The Hunter" were carried out by a single sniper bullet believed to come from a Russian-made Dragunov rifle with a high-powered scope.
But General Sanchez singled out the killing of a young US soldier near Baghdad University last week as an example of the hitman's work.
In that "hit", the soldier was walking away from a street vendor after buying a soft drink when his attacker strolled up to him from behind and shot him in the back of the neck with a hand gun before escaping into the crowd of a nearby bus station.
Witnesses described the killer as casually dressed, calm and fast.
An average of about a dozen attacks a day are being launched on the mainly American occupation forces. Some 381 injuries have been suffered by coalition forces although no serious injuries have been reported among the small contingent of Australian soldiers performing duties such as guarding Australia's diplomatic presence in Baghdad.
The streets of Baghdad were almost deserted late last night but many of the attacks have been aimed at US patrols enforcing an 11pm to 4am curfew.
General Sanchez told a media briefing that his intelligence officers had gathered significant amounts of information about the forces behind the attacks.
The coalition has stressed it does not see signs of any nationally co-ordinated guerilla army operating in Iraq but General Sanchez said there were locally co-ordinated campaigns of resistance. During the past week there had been an unprecedented number of mortar attacks, instead of the previous pattern of only light arms being fired at coalition troops.
In the 24 hours to noon on Thursday, for instance, there were seven attacks on the road from Amman, Jordan, to Baghdad, including several using mortars.
In the same period, mortars were fired on coalition forces near four cities that were previously Saddam Hussein strongholds – Ramadi, Fallujah, Tikrit and Balad.
The hostile forces included members of Hussein's Baath party, the volunteer Saddam Fedayeen militia and "maybe some special Republican Guards", General Sanchez said. "We have also seen some Iraqis who have been paid to go and attack Americans and they will do it because they are in dire need." "The war is not over – I keep saying that," he said. "There is terrorism and war fighting going on in Baghdad."
Apart from the politically motivated attacks, General Sanchez said the general level of crime in Baghdad was about the same as that of an American city of a similar size.
General Sanchez said he believed the coalition had a limited "window of opportunity" to get on top of the problems in Iraq before things could get worse.
It was crucial the economy be revived to improve living conditions and stop Iraqi society becoming more fractured and hostile to the coalition.
Members of the re-formed Iraqi police force in Fallujah, the site of several bloody clashes between locals and US troops, held their own protest on Thursday to demand that US forces leave the country.
Threatening to resign from the force unless the Americans set a departure date, the new police said that as long as their country was occupied by foreigners it would be impossible for them to do their job.
General Sanchez said it was the democratic right of the newly appointed policemen to protest but if they did quit they would simply be replaced by new recruits.
US commanders in Baghdad have dropped any pretence that the coalition operation and handover to Iraqi rule could be nearly as fast as American officials initially predicted.
his attacker strolled up to him from behind and shot him in the back of the neck with a hand gun before escaping into the crowd of a nearby bus station.
sounds different from a Dragunov sniper. Could be a single Uber-killer, but given a hostile, or at least "wait and see" mood among the populace, I think opportunistic richard-heads could be the culprits.
Remember "The Princess Bride" and "The Dread Pirate Roberts" who was actually a whole series of individuals? Each one of whom was a series guy?
Roger that ... especially since GySgt Hathcock died from the long term effects of the wounds that he suffered in the Nam a little more than six years ago. Nice that you would remember him tho.
didn't read the whole article- saw the part about the Dragunov, and then the bit about the troop capped by a "walk" by. from that amount of reading, didn't think it pointed at one guy.
I've given this some thought and lol we have another mortar man on the thread other than me so you don't have to take my word for it. Believe me, I'm thinking about it. The IRA (in Ireland) have perfected the one use, throwaway mortar. Its ballistics are worked out beforehand and its accuracy is left to that chance.
Practically speaking, I don't see how a mortar could be employed to reasonable effect without some training involved. Would an FO be needed? Yes and no. If the mortar man were knowledgeable in his craft he could expect a reasonable amount of accuracy regardless of whether he had an FO or not. Another thing that he could do is to adjust his fire on a target totally away from his "real" target until his guns were "registered". As long as this registration was accomplished within certain parameters his gun would be accurate when traversed onto the other target. I'm not saying this is the case.
But if I were a mortar man playing the Che Guevara role in Iraq, I'm sure I could land a few rounds on my target.
I'll never forget him.
Well, not all the killings. And I'm not agitating for that. But at least two sounded eerily similar. Those two could've been done by the same guy. If you were an insurgent commander, would it not make sense to use the guy as propaganda material? He's "made his bones" so to speak. This is only suspicion on my part. It will probably turn out not to be the case. But should we rule that out? Should we not turn resources on this the same as we would on the "Beltway Sniper" for instance?
Yes we should. Send Moose to Iraq.
The opposition will not win like this. I hope you understand my opposition to your posts. I really respect many of the things you have to say and have really appreciated your posts in the past (read: The Clinton Past). But I disagree with you on this. Please don't take it personal- in the future, we may wind up allies on a topic. But on this topic, I feel you are altogether wrong and since you are a poster that carries much weight, I will oppose you whenever you are a proponent to this attitude.
The war in Iraq was the right thing to do. That is my two cents. I know it disagrees with your two cents and that is precisely why I posted it.
As a practical matter we are considered infidels by a religion that commands adherants to initiate war against those who do not believe in it. This has been established by posts documenting it here. We are also occupying a country where a significant peoportion of the population are what we refer to as terrorists. There is no way to determine who is who. It is easy for someone to sit off 500 yards with a silenced rifle and pick off our people one at a time daily. Who are we to hit in return? If we manage to find one of the snipers, he is apt to believe being killed is an act applauded by Allah. That is the way for our enemies to fight this war to drive us out. It would be wise for the opposition to train hundreds of such people and fight smart.
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