Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2000 11:17:45 -0700 From: jwaldron@HALCYON.COM (Joe Waldron) Subject: [Fwd: (ai) Israelis use specialized sniper rifles] To: AZRKBA@asu.edu
Coming soon to a SWAT team near you... (This message is being forwarded not as a commentary on right or wrong in the middle east, but rather to inform list members of a new riot-control tactic adopted by an organization with vast experience in the riot control arena. While one would think our Bill of Rights would prevent such targeted bloodshed, one never knows...)
Joe W
>
> The Times
>
> TUESDAY OCTOBER 17 2000
> No bangs, no smoking guns:
> victims just fell and bled
> SAM KILEY IN RAMALLAH
> ISRAELI snipers using specialised rifles fitted
> with silencers yesterday picked off high-profile
> Palestinian rioters in Ramallah in an apparent bid
> to "take out" ringleaders of the 19-day uprising.
> Stone-throwing youths watched, stunned, as men
> and boys at the barricades collapsed with small
> bullet holes in their chests, testicles, arms and
> hips. Those wounded included the nephew of
> Marwan Barghouti, the leader of the West Bank
> intifada who has been using the uprising to
> position himself as a potential successor to Yassir
> Arafat.
>
> Coming soon after an Israeli armoured vehicle
> charge at rioters, no one knew quite what to do
> about the new approach to riot control. The
> Israelis hurled stun grenades, and fired the
> occasional rubber bullet. The Palestinians were
> used to that, ducking and diving and chucking
> stones back. But the use of rounds which
> apparently came from nowhere terrified the
> crowds. There were no bangs, no smoking guns.
> The victims just flopped down and bled,
> sometimes unnoticed.
>
> Tahir Afaneh, 18, was unmoved by the sight of
> two men who fell close to him and were whisked
> away by ambulance. He already had an arm and a
> knee bandaged from rubber bullet wounds
> sustained earlier in the "al-Aqsa intifada".
>
> Easily visible in a white T-shirt, Mr Afaneh
> stepped from behind a car to whirr his slingshot
> and take aim at Israeli soldiers 100 yards away.
> There was no sound of a shot, but he spun around,
> falling on his back. "I didn't hear a thing. I didn't
> feel much, I just fell over," he said in Ramallah's
> central hospital where he was treated for a wound
> to his pelvis, where the bullet lodged.
>
> Hosni Atari, the doctor who treated him, said he
> had never seen the results of the new Israeli
> weapon before. Hollow-nosed bullets opened like
> an umbrella on impact, spun about, chewing up
> internal organs, and seldom left an exit wound.
>
> The long-barrel 22mm rifle was deadly even at
> long range and had the advantage of never
> revealing the sniper's nest. "These are intended to
> cause the maximum amount of damage to a
> person," Dr Atari said. He treated seven such
> patients yesterday.
>
> As the Israeli and Palestinian leadership talked
> peace in Sharm el-Sheik, another patient was
> rushed in. This time, it was Tamir Barghouti,
> whose uncle had declared at the funeral of a
> Palestinian gunman yesterday: "Our intifada is
> greater than Sharm el Sheik".
>
> Tamir Barghouti, 23, had been shot through the
> abdomen and the bullet lodged in his hip. "He
> might make it," Dr Atari told Marwan Barghouti,
> who took the opportunity to announce to
> journalists outside the operating theatre: "The
> talks in Egypt will fail. We support Mr Arafat, but
> we wish he had not bothered to go. There is only
> one solution, and that is to put an end to the Israeli
> occupation of Palestine."
>
> By sunset, the toll across the West Bank was two
> dead a boy of 13 and a policeman a 14-year
> old boy described as clinically dead, and 69
> wounded.
>
> *
> * NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 <U.S.C.> Section 107, this material
> * is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a
> * prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and
> * educational purposes only. Provided by G2-Forward.