Juba (sniper)

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"Juba" is the nickname associated with a character represented as a sniper involved with the Iraqi insurgency, said to have killed and wounded up to a hundred United States soldiers. The sniper is represented as firing only once before moving from his position, leaving behind little evidence of his whereabouts.

Juba's existence has not been certified by any military source, but video footage purporting to be of this character's attack has been disseminated on the internet. It is said that the same individual has carried out a number of such attacks.

A single cartridge case and a note have been found at the location where the sniper was believed to have been. The message says, in Arabic, "What has been taken in blood cannot be regained except by blood. Baghdad Sniper." These items were found after the sniper attack when buildings were searched by U.S. forces. (reference needed) It is not known whether "Juba" is a single sniper, whether "Juba" represents a copycat phenomenon carried out by multiple individuals, or if "Juba" in fact exists at all.

In November 2005, a video appeared (reference needed) on the internet attributed to the Islamic Army in Iraq, which may be a real insurgent group. It contained images of men represented as United States soldier, falling to the ground, allegedly due to Juba's attacks.

There was also a release of a video clip containing nine shootings of men with the appearence of being U.S. soldiers. The video starts with "Juba" saying, "I have nine bullets in this gun and I have a present for George Bush, I am going to kill nine people. I am doing this for the viewers to watch. God is great. God is great (Allahu Akhbar)." With that, he makes his way from the vehicle, and a series of scenes begin which show several individuals shot in action.

Possible manufactured propaganda

The videos could be fake. One report from online News service La Voz de Aztlan (Voice of Aztlan) says concerning one video which they had linked to, "the video appears to have been produced by Al-Queda. We have now removed two reports on "Juba" because of the concerns communicated to us by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS)." [1]

Rumors of capture

A military commander ______ (name and rank, and which army?) in Iraq recently hinted that "Juba" may have been captured on June 2, 2005, when an Iraqi sniper, in a van at a distance of 75-100 metres away, shot at American soldier Stephen Tschiderer, who was hit but was not seriously hurt due to his body armor. [2] Soldiers from the (which?) unit began searching for the shooter and spotted two possible insurgent fighters (allegedly the sniper and the driver who videotapes the attacks). ______ says the two men were wounded and captured.

_______ says the army located the van from which the sniping took place and discovered a cushioned sniping nest. This nest was lined with numerous bed mattresses to muffle the sound of a Dragunov sniper rifle [3] fired through a hole just big enough for the shooter to engage his target of choice. However, sniper attacks have continued since this date in Baghdad with the same tactics.

Blogs About Juba

Many websites & blogs from different countries talk about "Juba The Sniper", they mention to what he has done to U.S soliders in iraq, providing stories, pictures and movie clips showing sniped soliders, one of arabic weblogs Juba Sniper Blog says : " glory for you juba, we still can see the fear in your enemies' eyes,feel the terror in your haters' hearts,what a great man who planted the fear in their hearts,and placed the bullets in their foreheads " !

War Games

Juba has apparently become an idol to some, and a number of fans replicate the original sniper videos with videogame videos which had been first thought of insurgent propaganda, but both the authors (references needed) and some government officials (who? from which government? -- references needed) concluded that they were just fan made films.

Online gamers are naming themselves after the real Juba; for example players in EA's Battlefield 2 has gamers such as Jubathesniper & Juba_sniper90 Juba_sniper90 , one of the online " jubas" (reference needed), a selection of nickname which may be an attempt to portray Juba's insurgent sniper reputation in online war videogames.

References

Carroll, Rory (2005). "Elusive sniper saps U.S. morale in Baghdad" The Guardian. August 5, 2005.
"Al-Qaeda, Iraq insurgents mark Muslim holiday", Agence France-Presse. November 3, 2005.

External links