Watch a Rebel Sniper Hit Two Men With Two Shots
Sharpshooters do more of the fighting in Syria
by DAVID AXE
Many of the roughly 200,000 Free Syrian Army rebels fighting the regime of Syrian Pres. Bashar Al Assad were civilians not too long ago and lack all but the most cursory military training.
But there are exceptions. The FSA includes a few highly skilled marksmen—either defected regime soldiers or gun experts in civilian life. Now you can see two of them in action.
The Farouk Brigade, arguably the most professional of the FSA’s dozens of combat units, handed us a video from the point of view of a brigade sniper as he shot at, and apparently hit, two men in quick succession. That video does not show the shooter, only the targets.
But we received a second video from former fighter Juma Al Qassim showing a sniper at work from Al Qassim’s perspective. To give you a realistic sense of what combat is like for rebel snipers, we combined the two videos.
With battle lines hardening along a north-south divide after three nearly three years of war, concealed snipers are doing more and more of the fighting: shooting at opposing fighters and marksmen … and even at civilians.
Subscribe to War is Boring here.
