As bombs and bullets piled up in rubble from rebel fighters and regime soldiers’ continuous battle in war-torn Syria, a notorious rebel sniper known as “Moscow Sniper” admits to have been inspired by the character of Hollywood actor Jude Law in the 2001 film “Enemy at the Gates.”
Interviewed by The Telegraph in condition of anonymity, Moscow Sniper said he had killed more than 76 with his rifle. The sniper said he has fought in a number of large battles in Aleppo, taking pride that he was always on the winning side.
“I have the bullet casings of each one of those 76,” he said in the interview, adding that to count further seems pointless. The sniper also prided himself of the three bulls-eye shots he pulled through in shooting down tank navigators through their vision flaps.
He said he originated from the city of Al-Bab, located east of Aleppo.
The Hollywood film, directed by French Jean Jacques Annaud, evolves in the character of Law who is a soldier for the Russian army during a World War II against Germans over the city of Stalingard of the Soviet Union.
According to the Telegraph report, the Syrian sniper sees himself no different from Vassili Zaitsev, Jude Law’s character in the film, as they both crawl into safety and at the same time kill for survival.
Moscow Sniper was a front line soldier for the Assad regime before defecting six months ago, he was also assigned in the south of the country in Deraa prior to his changing sides.
In a coincidence such that of the hunting down of Law’s character in the film, Moscow Sniper was hunted down as well by regime forces, says the report.
“The regime sent two men to assassinate me,“ he said as quoted by the Telegraph.
Moscow Sniper explains that they knew about him from the signature graffiti he leaves on walls – “Moscow sniper was here”--, like the instance in the suburb of Suleiman Halabi after regime forces discovered rebel forces hiding in the area.
The sniper explained the two men were dressed in civilian clothes to avoid suspicion and kept asking people on his whereabout, but were eventually arrested after being caught paying for the information.
They both had pistols with silencers attached, added the soldier.
In a group divided into two squadrons that tried to take down an outpost by regime forces on Wednesday in Karem Jabal, Moscow Sniper was lucky enough to be a part of the left side squadron who survived from grenades exploding him into bits. The outpost was protecting a major military base, according to the Telegraph.
Moscow Sniper said they were supposed to “squeeze it [the outpost] like the neck of a snake” when the other squadron charged in after feeling victorious over an attack that downed captain and two lieutenants of the regime forces, a big fatal mistake, said the sniper.
“They lost control, discipline,” explained Moscow Sniper, “They thought they had a victory.”
The regime outpost forces fired on them without mercy, described the sniper, others were bombed into pieces while others were shot down by snipers.
Dr. Ahmed Radwan, a doctor assigned at a rebel hospital in Aleppo, said in a report by the Telegraph, that ten men died from the unsuccessful Wednesday attack while 15 managed to return, luckily, alive.
No matter how Moscow Sniper thinks himself as a surviving character in the Syrian war, wars in real life don’t have video cameras filming the whole turn of events for a film, only cameras of journalists hungry for news; fighters are only left with one thing to do at night-- a roll of gun-fires at night to pay tribute to their martyrs, an unfortunate event that might sum up what’s happening in Syria at present.
What do you think of this story - Is it wrong for the 'Moscow Sniper' to compare his own part in the real-life Syrian struggle to a Hollywood movie? Leave us your comments below!
