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March 31, 2003, The Scotsman
IN THIS DEADLY GAME OF CAT AND MOUSE, THE SNIPER RULES Gethin Chamberlain IT WAS the tank crew who spotted them first - four men in civilian clothing jumping out of the back of a pick-up truck carrying a rocket-propelled grenade launcher in the heart of Az Zubayr. Corporal Mark Harvey was the first of the snipers to react, dropping to his knee and fixing the man carrying the RPG in his sights. He had one shot at a moving target, but the militia man dropped like a stone, dead before he hit the ground. Cpl Harvey had administered one clean shot to the head. The three others with him stopped in their tracks, grabbed the body of their fallen comrade and pulled him into the bushes by the roadside, then took off towards the nearby houses. But in the Challenger tank their every move was being watched. As they ran into what they thought was the safety of the rabbit warren of ramshackle buildings, the sniper teams' radios were crackling in their earpieces, guiding them in. Then they were running towards the houses, all thoughts of cover forgotten, racing towards the doorway into which their quarry had vanished. In the lead was Corporal 'Pedro' Laing, rifle in hand. He reached the door and never paused, raising his boot and kicking hard against the woodwork, sending it flying open. Inside an old man looked up, startled, to find himself grabbed roughly and thrown out of the doorway into the street, past Cpl Harvey and Lance Corporal Scott 'Robbo' Robertson, the pair hot on Pedro's heels. Inside the building was a militiaman, who pulled the pin from his grenade and hurled it at Pedro's head. The corporal ducked and the grenade flew over his head, exploding in the street outside. The shrapnel whizzed past his colleagues outside, and fragments hit Robbo at the top of his legs. As Pedro got back to his feet, he looked up to see that the man in front of him had snatched up his AK47. As he hit the ground again, a burst of bullets whistled over his head. On his feet once more, he saw that the man had now grabbed the RPG launcher and down he went again, diving out of the doorway. The rocket missed him by inches, hitting the embankment on the opposite side of the street. The explosion sent Cpl Harvey somersaulting over the mound of sandy soil, landing heavily on the other side. Jumping up, he fired one shot at the man now standing in the doorway and, as the soldiers would say, 'slotted' him with a single round from his sniper's rifle from 20 metres. The man was killed instantly. Then Robbo and Pedro were in through the doorway, throwing grenades on the run. As the grenades went off the pair opened up with their rifles, finishing off the militiamen. Four lads from a mortar platoon rushed in to help make sure none got away, clearing the building, killing everyone in their way. For the snipers it was a rare moment of hand-to-hand fighting - the closest they had been to an enemy they normally only saw through the telescopic sights, bound in dusty rags and fixed to the top their rifles, the long muzzles masked by more scraps of cloth in an attempt to prevent any glint of metal which would give their position away. For eight days they have been lying in the dirt and crouching on rooftops, waiting to pick off the militiamen preying on their friends, the militiamen who slip from building to building, emerging out of the dark to fire their RPGs, then disappearing back into the mass of houses that make up this troublesome little town. The snipers had feared they would play little part in the battles to be fought in an open desert war, but as the soldiers threw away their uniforms and ran back into the towns and the militiamen became the true enemy, they came in to their own. In this new cat and mouse war, the sniper was king. In eight days, there have been 17 kills. They arrived in the town nine days ago, 18 men with one thing on their minds. Days went past as they sat in their observation posts, scanning the arc of land ahead of them, waiting for the enemy to make a mistake. Among their number was Vincent Polus, 24, a Lance Corporal born in Inverness and brought up in Glasgow. For him it is eight days and three kills, the rest of the time spent lying still for hours on end, with no chance of returning to the relative safety of the rear. Living off cold rations, with no opportunity to light a fire, an empty plastic bottle and clingfilm serve as his latrine. Sometimes the snipers work in pairs, sometimes there are half a dozen of them stretched out across the position they have taken up - a hole in the ground or a gap in a building, a window or a ledge on the rooftops. There are nine bullets in the rifle magazine, with its single shot and bolt action, the favourite weapon of the Black Watch sniper. "Your eyes are on the target area all the time, you keep your eyes on that area," the corporal said. "If a target comes into view you report it to command and ask permission to fire, then you check your elevation and adjust for the wind. "You have to get the breathing right. A couple of deep breaths then you start breathing again normally, and as you start to release your breath you squeeze the trigger. That's the moment you are at your most steady." The first time he fired he had been stationary for three hours, sitting waiting in a building near the centre of the town. Three hours in, the frustration began to creep over him. There was no sign of anything moving and he faced a constant battle to stay alert, his colleague at his side, scouring the arc with his telescope. Then the moment they had been waiting for came, as a group of men appeared. They were dressed in civilian clothes and a bodyguard carried a folded AK47 and magazines of ammunition in his belt. There were six of them in total, unaware of the two pairs of eyes following them from further down the street. The militiamen moved forward then stopped, half hidden from view. Half an hour went by, their heads sometimes visible but never a clear-enough shot - no chance of taking all six down, no point in firing at one or two and risking the others getting away. Then they were moving again, climbing into a flatbed pick-up truck, the bodyguard crouching in the back. In his hideaway, Cpl Polus spoke a few words into his radio mouthpiece, asking for permission to fire, never taking his eyes from the target for a moment, the muzzle of his rifle fixed on the bodyguard's chest. Permission given, he adjusted his aim, checking the sights. He was 750 metres away and there was no wind. He began his breathing - two short and then one normal - the air beginning to leave his lungs. In the back of the pickup, the bodyguard fumbled, the AK47 slipping forward in his lap. Cpl Polus squeezed the trigger. "Through the sight I saw him fall back out of the truck and then the truck started to drive forwards," he said. "My sergeant put a couple of rounds into it but it was driving away and there were civvies coming out and picking up the dead guy." The truck had disappeared from view, but still Cpl Polus did not move, sure that the sun behind him would have blinded anyone looking in his direction towards the muzzle flash. "I just kept watching and then the truck appeared again. That's when I shot the driver," he said. " I couldn't see much because of the sun on his windscreen but I knew where I was aiming. I hit him in the head and he fell out of the side of the wagon and went into a ditch." Nearby, Sergeant Mark Cameron was also waiting for his moment. Now the 31 -year-old, from Brechin, seized his chance, firing twice at the passengers inside the pickup, killing both. The others ran away, but four out of six lay dead. Mark Harvey is back in Cyprus now, out of the theatre of war. He, Pedro and Robbo are in line for a commendation for their bravery. Sgt Cameron is wondering whether anyone back home will really be able to understand what they are going through - day in and day out, hunting down enemies who can melt away in a moment, putting down their weapons and becoming just a few more faces in the crowd.
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................................................................................................................. Copyright ©2004 Gethin Chamberlain. All rights reserved. |
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