At one point, there was even a website and blog that claimed to have been set up by the 'Baghdad sniper' with messages in English and French. Many videos claiming to show 'Juba' in action still float around the internet, purportedly showing the mysterious sniper picking off American personnel. However, the legend of Juba lives on online. 'We've built up this myth ourselves.' Certainly, some of the higher death tolls attributed to Juba seem far-fetched. 'Juba the Sniper? He's a product of the US military,' Captain Brendan Hobbs told Stars and Stripes in 2007. Some have suggested that the sniper must have been killed, while others say that no one sniper ever actually existed. The Islamic Army in Iraq's distribution of DVDs showing the sniper operating in Baghdad seemed to be a successful act of psychological warfare.Īfter a couple of years, 'Juba' seems to have ceased activity. In Iraq, where much of the fighting was taking place in urban areas, US troops seemed especially vulnerable to snipers. Finnish sniper Simo Hayha became a national hero after he killed more than 500 Soviet soldiers during the 1939-1940 Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union. Snipers have long been a terrifyingly evocative feature of warfare: Soviet sniper Vasily Zaytsev was said to have killed more than 200 Germans during the Battle of Stalingrad, though his famous duel with a German rival is probably a myth. 'I have nine bullets in this gun and I have a present for George Bush,' the sniper tells the camera. 'Juba' even sent a message to the US president in one video. This is not a zealot this is a calculated shooter.'

'And he has the judgment and discipline to take a shot, wisely choose an escape route, and immediately depart to avoid capture. 'He definitely knows what to do with a rifle,' Major John Plaster, a retired Green Beret sniper instructor, told ABC upon seeing the tape. In that video, the sniper claimed to have killed 143 US service members. Credit:Internet ArchiveĪccording to ABC News, one video claiming to show 'Juba' showed at least a dozen attacks on US troops.

Propaganda videos made by the Iraqi insurgency can still be found showing footage of US soldiers being killed by an Iraqi sniper known as 'Juba'.

Mustafa sniper