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Winston Churchill knew the perils of Afghanistan’s snipers more than a century ago. Today, it seems, the Taleban sharpshooters are just as deadly. In his account of 1898 of a British excursion into the borderlands between what is now Afghanistan and Pakistan, he quoted Kipling’s Arithmetic on the Frontier: “A scrimmage in a Border Station/ A canter down some dark defile/ Two thousand pounds of education/ Drops to a ten-rupee jezail.”
Churchill’s report refers to the snipers as armed with long-barrelled, elaborately inlaid, jezails or muskets. Their fire was accurate and intense. “These sharpshooters enjoyed themselves immensely,” he wrote.
The fatal shootings of two British soldiers in Helmand have renewed fears over Taleban snipers. In February General James Conway, the Commandant of the US Marines, told Congress that the biggest threat was not necessarily the improvised explosive device. “It is the sniper that takes a long-range shot and can penetrate our protective equipment.”
In 2006, when British soldiers were first sent to Helmand, they would mock the Taleban insurgents’ “spray and pray” technique. Nonetheless, in the early years of the conflict, liberal rules of engagement meant that US and Nato soldiers could respond with 1,000lb bombs dropped on the insurgents’ firing positions.
By 2008 the Taleban, obliterated in battle against a better trained, more disciplined and technologically superior enemy, had switched to home-made bombs. Face-to-face contact became rare. But as Nato’s rules of engagement were tightened to reduce civilian casualties the Taleban tactics evolved.
By last month the coalition military officials admitted that there had been an alarming rise of “pinpointed” attacks and “small sniping incidents”. The Taleban, meanwhile, said that they had trained more fighters to use the Russian-made Dragunov rifles.
When a US sentry was shot in the head last week, his commanding officer blamed specialists trained overseas. “What country they are from I couldn’t tell you. But the skill of the enemy fighter that took down my soldier is not something that was trained here,” Lieutenant-Colonel David Flynn said.
The bullet is thought to have been fired from at least 400 metres — well beyond the accurate range of an AK47.
Both sides use sharpshooters to sap enemy morale and Nato is fighting back. “I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt that we have people who hunt snipers and kill them,” Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Breasseale, the Isaf spokesman, said.
Kipling’s poem reaches a bleak conclusion. Training, wealth and technology are no match for valley scamps “blessed with perfect sight”.
“No proposition Euclid wrote/ No formulae the text-books know/ Will turn the bullet from your coat/ Or ward the tulwar’s downward blow/ Strike hard who cares – shoot straight who can/ The odds are on the cheaper man.”
The Times
Jerome Starkey
Winston Churchill knew the perils of Afghanistan’s snipers more than a century ago. Today, it seems, the Taleban sharpshooters are just as deadly. In his account of 1898 of a British excursion into the borderlands between what is now Afghanistan and Pakistan, he quoted Kipling’s Arithmetic on the Frontier: “A scrimmage in a Border Station/ A canter down some dark defile/ Two thousand pounds of education/ Drops to a ten-rupee jezail.”
Churchill’s report refers to the snipers as armed with long-barrelled, elaborately inlaid, jezails or muskets. Their fire was accurate and intense. “These sharpshooters enjoyed themselves immensely,” he wrote.
The fatal shootings of two British soldiers in Helmand have renewed fears over Taleban snipers. In February General James Conway, the Commandant of the US Marines, told Congress that the biggest threat was not necessarily the improvised explosive device. “It is the sniper that takes a long-range shot and can penetrate our protective equipment.”
In 2006, when British soldiers were first sent to Helmand, they would mock the Taleban insurgents’ “spray and pray” technique. Nonetheless, in the early years of the conflict, liberal rules of engagement meant that US and Nato soldiers could respond with 1,000lb bombs dropped on the insurgents’ firing positions.
By 2008 the Taleban, obliterated in battle against a better trained, more disciplined and technologically superior enemy, had switched to home-made bombs. Face-to-face contact became rare. But as Nato’s rules of engagement were tightened to reduce civilian casualties the Taleban tactics evolved.
By last month the coalition military officials admitted that there had been an alarming rise of “pinpointed” attacks and “small sniping incidents”. The Taleban, meanwhile, said that they had trained more fighters to use the Russian-made Dragunov rifles.
When a US sentry was shot in the head last week, his commanding officer blamed specialists trained overseas. “What country they are from I couldn’t tell you. But the skill of the enemy fighter that took down my soldier is not something that was trained here,” Lieutenant-Colonel David Flynn said.
The bullet is thought to have been fired from at least 400 metres — well beyond the accurate range of an AK47.
Both sides use sharpshooters to sap enemy morale and Nato is fighting back. “I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt that we have people who hunt snipers and kill them,” Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Breasseale, the Isaf spokesman, said.
Kipling’s poem reaches a bleak conclusion. Training, wealth and technology are no match for valley scamps “blessed with perfect sight”.
“No proposition Euclid wrote/ No formulae the text-books know/ Will turn the bullet from your coat/ Or ward the tulwar’s downward blow/ Strike hard who cares – shoot straight who can/ The odds are on the cheaper man.”