ULTIMATE SACRIFICE: Private Adams, Cpl Mulligan, and LCpl Hopkins, pictured, were killed
Sunday August 9,2009
A SCOTTISH soldier has been praised for making the longest recorded kill in Afghanistan after shooting a top Taliban fighter from almost a mile away.
Corporal Christopher Reynolds took out the Afghan drug lord during some of the hardest fighting of the war so far.
The 25-year-old, of 3 Scots, The Black Watch, kept watch on a shop rooftop for three days to eliminate the target.
But he admitted the top-level Taliban fighter – known as Musa – was so far away it took him a couple of attempts to get the aim right.
Initially Musa, who was with four men, did not even realise he was being shot at.
But Cpl Reynolds, of Dalgety Bay, in Fife, together with his spotter Lance Corporal David Hatton, worked out different factors such as wind speed and the trajectory of the bullet to hit the target. Musa, who was more than 1,500 metres away, was taken out with a single shot to the chest.
Cpl Reynolds, who has killed 32 Taliban fighters, said: “I was quite proud of that shot. It is the longest recorded kill in Afghanistan. I am going to use that fact as a chat-up line in the pub when I get back home.”
His 20-year-old spotter, from Castlemilk, in Glasgow, added: “We had been in position for three days when he made that shot. He did a top job that day.”
Another Scot in the same unit eliminated a sniper by using a precision missile launcher which costs £70,000 to fire.
Sergeant Daniel Buist, of Arbroath, Angus, hit the insurgent hiding in a two-feet wide “murder hole” dug out of a wall.
The 34-year-old fired his Javelin launcher – only used in the “most desperate of situations” – to take out the sniper after seeing him shoot patrols.
Incredibly, his aim was so accurate he hit the enemy fighter without damaging the compound wall.
“It was later confirmed that I had actually hit someone, as there were fresh blood trails.
“The remains had been dragged away by other Taliban. It can be gruesome, but I had to stop that guy from taking out my men.”
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