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February 13, 2007

Iranians Supplying .50 cal Sniper Rifles to Iraqi Insurgents

SeeDub sent me a link to a post of his about tunnels across the U.S. border. Good find. But right underneath is, what I think, an even more important story.

Iran Ships Austrian .50-cal Sniper Rifles To Insurgents

If you've ever seen the kind of damage a .50 cal can do, you don't need to ask why this is a huge problem. They were developed to take out lightly armored vehicles, but can also be used against people. If you get hit by one of these, there is no hope for survival.

Bill Roggio, citing the same report, says:

Over twelve percent of Iran's Steyr HS50 sniper rifles purchased by the "National Iranian Police Organisation" in 2005 have been found inside Iraq.

Not. Good.

Posted by: Rusty at 10:18 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
Post contains 132 words, total size 1 kb.

1 If you get hit by one of these, there is no hope for survival.

Er... not exactly. The Steyr HS .50 sniper rifle is nothing more or less than a single-shot version of the venerable Browning M2 fifty-caliber machine gun. It fires the same old basic 0.50-cal jacketed round that's been in use for eighty years. Put in the right place, it can indeed kill a typical unarmored or light armored vehicle. And it's much more effective against humans than against machines. Any head or body hit from one will be lethal. A hit anywhere else will probably kill if medical aid is more than a couple of minutes away. But "no hope for survival" is a wee bit of an overstatement.

Posted by: wolfwalker at February 13, 2007 11:41 AM (MWfz5)

2 No mention anywhere how the Government of Austria thought that shooting suspected drug runners was an acceptable way of fighting the 'drug trade'.

I guess they are only against the death penalty if these drug runners are actually caught AND Austria does not receive $15 million in blood money!

Imagine the uproar from Europe if the US started shooting suspected drug runners on its borders (with non-Austrian sniper rifles).

Maybe the US should bomb the hell out of the Austrian rifle factory. Maybe that will send the right message. If not, how long before the lawyers of American dead bury this Austrian company in lawsuits.

Posted by: Fred Fry at February 13, 2007 01:17 PM (JXdhy)

3 Well. On the upside that's one twelve percent less rifles we will have to deal with when we go into Iran.

Posted by: mike at February 13, 2007 01:53 PM (0eCEh)

4 The "drug trade" claimed purpose by Iran kind of fits with the recent reported mini-uprising (within past couple weeks on here) which was smashed and dismissed as a "drug raid."

Whatever the Iranian version of the DEA is, it sounds like a fat little slush fund.

Posted by: wooga at February 13, 2007 02:22 PM (t9sT5)

5 By G@d I said these sniper rifles would turn up inside Iraq last year!
Does anyone remember?
With armour-piercing rounds these things can pentrate 4 cm of steel armour at a distance of 1000 meters. (Sorry guys I grew up on metric and Canada is metric). And the IRI does in fact make this munition itself.
When the allies objected to the Mullahcracy purchasing these from Austrian, the IRI claimed they wanted them for drug interdiction operations. Remember that!?!?!?!?
Isn't this the epitome of the "smoking gun"? How much more evidence of the IRI interference does one need?
Time to haul some Austrain arses to court!
And time to start bombing concentrations of IRGC and Basiji.
Also time to put VoA-Persian Service "Radio Farda" under CENTCOMM

[Dr. S., please forgive the rant!]

Posted by: Garduneh Mehr at February 13, 2007 02:30 PM (vixLB)

6 I have seen Iraqis survive .50 cal hits.

My unit had to amputate a man's soldier girdle and a half a woman's pelvis that were hit by .50 cal fire. They looked like they had been hit with a big ice cream scoop when we were done.

Posted by: y7 at February 13, 2007 03:15 PM (yYph9)

7 .... I meant the IRI makes armour-piercing rounds that can be used with the Steyr 0.5 cal sniper rifle.

Posted by: Garduneh Mehr at February 13, 2007 03:18 PM (vixLB)

8 I thought CNN said Iran was not supplying weapons? ROFL

Posted by: DAT at February 13, 2007 07:02 PM (KPQyo)

9 Either the serial number(s) of the captured weapon(s) match those the Austrians sold or they don't.

And the way the Mullahcracy tries to attribute everything to drug-traffickers is ludicrous in a stupid and childish sort of way.

One of the ways they finance Hizbullah is by pushing drugs. To wit, a significant number of narcotics arrests made in Australia were of Shi'ah Lebanese. The bastards do the same in Canada. And of course Hizbullah is just one facet of Mullah's terrorism. The IRGC itself in addition to its terrorist activities is a drug-trafficking gang, but one with military organization

Posted by: Garduneh Mehr at February 13, 2007 07:35 PM (vixLB)

10 Dr. S.,
I thought you might like to see this. The following link is to the text of a letter written a year ago by an Iranian anti-IRI activist to the Austrian government warning them about the IRI's true intentions.
http://activistchat.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=7617

Posted by: Garduneh Mehr at February 13, 2007 07:45 PM (vixLB)

11 The cartridge was developed as an anti tank round in WWI. The rifle was developed as a "Gee, Whiz! What a neat toy!" for civilians, by civilians, more recently.

Posted by: Phillep at February 14, 2007 11:04 AM (FIYwe)

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February 13, 2007

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