Guerilla Actions in Irak

Why shouldnt he?
Go on Iama, give us those links and we'll see for ourselves.

I think the comparation with Vietnam is about a prolonged war,without a clear end,and with a posibility of a shame reatreat of US army,without the reach the political purposes(but i think military and especially economic purposes were fully reached). About the snipers killed on an ambush,i dont think is something impossible.After all,the insurgents know much better the area and the terrain,and possible have information about joint US army-new irakian army operation from agents infiltrated in new irakian army structures.And another comparation with Vietnam,the US army is see by the local population as an ocupation army,and USA loose again the psihological war and the suport of local peoples.

From what I've heard (initially on US network TV news), the initial 6 Marines killed were snipers, in 2 teams of 3 each. US snipers (both Army and Marine) do deploy in teams. Not all members of the team carry sniper rifles -- the others provide security, which certainly seems to have been needed in this case. (Whether they should be considered "snipers" I leave up to the reader... like graduates of Ranger school who are not in Ranger units... are they Rangers?)

The teams were deploying on rooftops near each other and were taken under intense small arms fire from other rooftops which killed 5 of them almost immediately. There was immediate suspicion that the ambush (that's what it appeared to be) was an "inside job" and that Iraqi troops the Marines were cooperating with had been infiltrated by insurgents.

Hi Imperialist,

There is no particular reason why Iama shouldn't look for the links, I just don't feel he need feel obliged to do so on my account.

Cheers,

Sid.

Aren't US snipers operating in teams of two instead of three (the sniper and the spotter)?

Given that apparently they moved in an urban environment, I think they needed insertion teams for going in and afterwards for securing the buildings from which they sniped.

Actually, i read in that e-newspapers were 3 teams of 2 soldiers, spotter and "destroyer".

Sid, what i read... i read in american (US!) news papers - not in anti-american ones.

And what information i read was something like Jeff knows from US media - appears to be an ambush were ambushed were US snipers...

Iama

About snipers in Irak... The legend of Juba

"They have never seen Juba. They hear him, but by then it's too late: a shot rings out and another US soldier slumps dead or wounded. There is never a follow-up shot, never a chance for US forces to identify the origin, to make the hunter the hunted. He fires once and vanishes. Juba is the nickname given by American forces to an insurgent sniper operating in southern Baghdad. They do not know his appearance, nationality or real name, but they know and fear his skill. "He's good," said Specialist Travis Burress, 22, a sniper with the 1-64 battalion based in Camp Rustamiyah. "Every time we dismount I'm sure everyone has got him in the back of their minds. He's a serious threat to us." Gun attacks occasionally pepper the battalion's foot and mounted patrols, but the single crack of what is thought to be a Tobuk sniper rifle inspires particular dread.
Since February, the killing of at least two members of the battalion and the wounding of six more have been attributed to Juba. Some think it is also he that has picked off up to a dozen other soldiers. In a war marked by sectarian bombings and civilian casualties, Juba is unusual in targeting only coalition troops, a difficult quarry protected by armoured vehicles, body armour and helmets.
He waits for soldiers to dismount, or stand up in a Humvee turret, and aims for gaps in their body armour, the lower spine, ribs or above the chest. He has killed from 200 metres away. "It was the perfect shot," the battalion commander, Lt Col Kevin Farrell, said of one incident. "Blew out the spine." "We have different techniques to try to lure him out, but he is very well trained and very patient. He doesn't fire a second shot." Some in the battalion want marksmen to occupy rooftops overlooking supply routes, Juba's hunting ground, to try to put him in the cross-hairs. "It would be a pretty shitty assignment because he's good," said Spc Burress. "I think it's a sniper's job to get a sniper, and it'd probably take all of us to get him." American snipers operate in teams of at least two people, a shooter and a spotter, the latter requiring more experience since he must use complicated formulae to calculate factors such as wind strength and drag coefficients. Some worry that Juba is on his way to becoming a resistance hero, acclaimed by those Iraqis who distinguish between "good" insurgents, who target only Americans, and "bad" insurgents who harm civilians. The insurgent grapevine celebrates an incident last June when a four-strong marine scout sniper team was killed in Ramadi, all with shots to the head. Unlike their opponents, US snipers in Baghdad seldom get to shoot. Typically they hide on rooftops and use thermal imaging and night vision equipment to monitor areas. If there is suspicious activity, they summon aircraft or ground patrols.
"We are professionals. There is a line between a maniac with a gun and a sniper," said Mike, 31, a corporal with a reconnaissance sniper platoon who did not want to his surname to be used. He spoke during a 24-hour mission on a roof during which his team ate junk food and urinated into a bottle. During daylight they lay on the ground, immobile, to avoid being seen. "It's not a glamorous life," he said. There was no sign of Juba, who tended to operate further east, but the team spotted mortar flashes and fed the coordinates to base. Mike said he had shot 14 people in Somalia, three in Afghanistan and one in Iraq. "It's not like you expect it to be, an emotional high. You just think about the wind, the range, then it's over with." Sniper fire is only of the threats for an American military that has suffered heavy losses this week. Yesterday another soldier was killed in Ramadi, west of Baghdad, adding to the 21 who died in attacks on Monday and Wednesday. Roadside bombs account for most of the lives lost, and the size and design of the explosions has led investigators to conclude that the insurgents are learning bombmaking methods from other terrorist organisations. Yesterday's New York Times reported that the techniques used by Hezbollah in Lebanon were increasingly being seen in roadside bombs in Iraq. An unnamed senior American commander quoted by the paper said bombs using shaped charges closely matched the bombs that Hezbollah used against Israel. "Our assessment is that they are probably going off to 'school' to learn how to make bombs that can destroy armoured vehicles," he said. "

Source: The Guardian

http://hackjaponaise.cosm.co.jp/0504200501.wmv and a link with iraqi snipers hunitg...

Attention! This short movie presents us soldiers who were shot from iraqi snipers! You are not forced to look at this link, and if admins/mods believe it is something ... please edit my post and erase the link.


Iama,

anyway... don't try this at home, they are prof.!

This post has been edited by Iamandi on August 09, 2005 06:04 am

Hi Iama,

I would point out that the Guardian is not American but British, and secondly that it is the most anti-American (or at least anti-Iraq War) of the five British broadsheet newspapers.

I think my original doubts about "six snipers" have proved justified. There appear to have been two amongst them, which makes much more sense.

The Guardian article is interesting from a number of points of view.

Firstly, it states that most US casualties are caused by IEDs. This is basically low level guerrilla activity in which direct confrontation with US forces is sensibly avoided.

Secondly, it attributes a high proportion of US fatalities in Baghdad to a single sniper.

Neither of these imply anything approaching a widespread popular uprising against the US, even in the four Sunni provinces where almost all the fighting is occurring.

It also shows the US sniper teams to be far from indiscriminate killers.

Whether Iraq becomes another Vietnam depends on what happens in the Shiite 60% of the country. Unless the Shiites take part in an active insurgency against the US, there can be no repetition of Vietnam because without them there can be no "national Iraqi" anything. At the moment they appear to be biding their time, using the US umbrella to consolidate the control of the Iraqi state that Sunni minority dictatorship has previously denied them. When they feel secure they will almost certainly start to try to squeeze the US out, but that is not the current case.

As for the 20% or Iraqis who are Kurds, their support for the US presence doesn't seem to be in question.

Cheers,

Sid.

Its the best kind of guerilla activity when facing the world's strongest military in a country where the desert doesnt offer much cover for complex guerilla manoeuvers.

Depends what you understand by "widespread popular uprising". What would you expect that to be? Masses of armed men marching down the streets in support of the resistance? They'd be massacred in an instance by US planes.
The widespread popular uprising means offering shelter to resistance fighters, inside information, exit routes, not giving them in to the authorities, etc.
There have been cases in which demonstrations against the US presence have ended in popular uprisers being shot by the authorities. It happened mostly in 2003 if I remember correctly. Nobody will populary uprise anymore, Sid.

It is British? Hehehehehe!!!! It is anti-american??? Hiihihihi!

I did a biiiiiiiiiiiig confusion!!!! Sorry!!!

But, why a british newspaper it is anti-USA?

Iama

Freedom of speech, something not common in Iran or Syria for example.

A normal team is 2, yes.

I have heard that they have used teams of 3 in Iraq, but I don't have confidence in the source.

Hi Imperialist,

Yes, what the insurgents are doing is entirely consistent with their limitations and US conventional strength.

But it also and very different from Vietnam where NVA Main Force Units fought a virtually conventional war employing hundreds of thousands of men in fully equipped divisions with artillery and tanks in order to inflict the bulk of the nearly 60,000 fatalities suffered by the US. IEDs and snipers are not going to do the same in Iraq. They are no Tet Offensive.

To replicate Vietnam and its impact on the USA, the Iraqi resistance firstly has to achieve a national campaign employing more than just a relatively small number of bomb makers and snipers drawn from the Sunni 20% of the population. Thereafter it has to develop a capability to inflict ten or more times the rate of fatalities on the US forces that it is currently managing.

Secondly, the US is more robust than it was during the Vietnam War due to 9/11 and it is not using conscripts. There is thus probably a higher US pain threshold than previously that has to be overcome.

Cheers,

Sid.

Hi Iamandi,

Yup. There are British newspapers that are highly cynical (even over cynical) about the US. As Victor points out, that is a function of a free press and is a thoroughly good thing. Iraq also has a vibrant free press with anti-American newspapers. If you want unanimity in the national press you need to look to totalitarian dictatorships such as Saddam Hussein's Iraq, or the USSR, or North Korea.

Cheers,

Sid.