In Iraq's Murky Battle, Snipers Offer U.S. a Precision Weapon

[Rose Siding]

SAMARRA, Iraq, Dec. 28 — The intimate horror of the guerrilla war here in Iraq seems most vivid when seen through the sights of a sniper's rifle.

In an age of satellite-guided bombs dropped at featureless targets from 30,000 feet, Army snipers can see the expression on a man's face when the bullet hits.

"I shot one guy in the head, and his head exploded," said Sgt. Randy Davis, one of about 40 snipers in the Army's new 3,600-soldier Stryker Brigade, from Fort Lewis, Wash. "Usually, though, you just see a dust cloud pop up off their clothes, and see a little blood splatter come out the front."

Working in teams of two or three, Army snipers here in Iraq cloak themselves in the shadows of empty city buildings or burrow into desert sands with camouflage suits, waiting to fell guerrilla gunmen and their leaders with a single shot from as far as half a mile away.

As the counterinsurgency grinds into its ninth month, the Army is increasingly relying on snipers to protect infantry patrols sweeping through urban streets and alleyways, and to kill guerrilla leaders and disrupt their attacks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/02/international/middleeast/02SNIP.html?hp

[Barrett808]

1. Project Phoenix on the way

Apocalypse Now Redux, indeed.

[GRClarkesq]

2. Not really, just

standard infantry tactics.

[Barrett808]

3. I should have been clearer -- other stories have reported assassination...

...squads are being deployed, a la Phoenix.

[Minstrel Boy]

4. How charming. And remind me again,

why is America occupying Iraq, and why are American snipers exploding Iraqi heads?