[NB: This post has been updated to reflect reality.] “The British-made AS-50, accurate from a distance of 20 football fields, is made for British Special Forces and has been used by Navy SEALs,” foxnew.com reports. Be as it may be, no. The gun in the video is a Chinese knock-off. But that doesn’t stop Fox from pursuing a good if fictional story. “Even if the rifle is a cheap knock-off of the AS-50, it has raised questions about who is supplying such devastating hardware. . . . The video, showing jihadist rebels of the ‘Descendents [sic] of the Prophet Brigade‘ firing one of the world’s most effective sniper rifles, should be cause for alarm,” said David Reaboi, of the Washington-based Center for Security Policy . . .
“We don’t know who has been supplying this group (or the myriad others) with these weapons [the Chinese?] but, given the jihadist ideology of these groups, it’s only a matter of time until they’re turned on Americans or our allies and interests.”
So even if we didn’t supply a $10k (retail) Accuracy International rifle in some roundabout or direct way to the Syrians, we’re sending them other weapons, no?
The Free Syrian Army has been receiving weapons from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey – all close allies of the U.S. But the U.S. has repeatedly stated that it has sent no weapons to the opposition forces.
Directly. Sent no weapons to the opposition forces directly. Because that would be wrong! What are the odds?
A good read is “Charlie Wilson’s War”. In it the author explains how Wilson was able to get weapons to the Afghan mujahideen via the Isrealies with help and finance from the Saudis and Pakistan. It is a funny old world.
I think you guys got beat to the punch on this….I saw this photo on another web site, sorry I cant produce the link, and they made a good argument that this gun is a Chinese knock off. they showed close ups of both guns and the characteristics of the gun looked like the Chinese model.
sorry if I step on your toes with a link to another gun blog,,,but isn’t this the same gun?? http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2007/12/19/the-chinese-50-bmg-sniper-rifle/
Robert, I think you might be a touch paranoid. Or course, that doesn’t mean you’re not a 100% correct.
Look closely, I’m thinking that’s a Chinese M-99 rather than an AS-50…
-Cranky
Chinese or not, it’s still more fiddy than I’ve got.
I have a solution — a .50 cal. gun buyback! We could give the jihadi boyz a grocery card or something, and they could turn in their fitties and RPGs.
Don’t laugh. It works in Chicago. Right?
Nice eye relief.
So which side do trendy progressive white liberals endorse now? Jihadist rebels or Baathist authoritarianism?
Jihadis, always the jihadis
AS50! Probably the single best sniper rifle made by any Muslim country. 😉
Except that it won’t shoot during prayer time… Or shave… Or not beat women…
Well, on closer examination that is definitely the M99.
How did they know these guys are jihadists? Allahu Akbar simply means ” God is Great”. If someone fired off a 50 next to me and I wasn’t wearing ears I would be using some choice German Four letter words… Doesn’t mean I was part of the Third Reich!
Um, there’s a civil war going on, and it’s likely that folks will occasionally be seen using weapons of war.
Why the concern?
It looks to me that is a Chinese Knockoff. However, even if it is an AS-50, I don’t understand why all the news outlets are getting all their panties up in a wad. It takes A LOT of specialized training in not only balistics, sniping, etc. but also mathematics, to account for the effect of the curvature of the Earth, to use this weapon over those long ranges. A well tained spotter is a must for using this weapon. Do you really think these clowns in this video have that expertise? I’m surprised the the guy shooting the weapon didn’t poke his eye out with that eye relief. Speaking of the scope, that doesn’t look like a scope capable of providing an appropriate field of view at 1500+ yards. One of the reasons the .50 BMG is so effective against our enimies in that part of the world is that they don’t have the ability ot hit back or even figure out where the shot came from. We do. If they used this weapon against our troops, I give them 15 minutes from the first shot before we find them and then no more sniper.
That rifle (round) is also capable of taking out vehicles. Every shot doesn’t have to be at 1,000+ yds nor soft skinned. I’m guessing the logic leap is that these could be used to take down planes. I believe that’s been on the minds of the antis ever since Barrett started marketing his wonderful wares.
Yes, it’s an M99.
What I could find on them says that they aren’t very accurate, like 2 moa
It’s meant as an anti-materiel rifle though, not as a long range sniper rifle.
So not only did they NOT get it from the US, but no one is going to pull off any Furlong-esque shots with it.
waiting for the “scope cut”….waiting….waiting…. DOH! there it is
The world abandoned the Syrian people to the fury of a bloodthirsty dictator and now we’re complaining when the rebels put their faith in God instead of us? WTF?
The Arab League, the UN, and the civilized world collectively didn’t give two turds about saving Syria from the onslaught of Assad’s baby-throat-slitting-militias, artillery, airstrikes, and now various ballistic missiles including SCUDS. Sure, there were a few token words of “condemnation” and “grave concern” but that was it. Now Syria has turned into the Yugoslavia of the Middle East with weapons flowing in from all over the planet. Syria has also been a magnet for people. An estimated 5,000 foreign fighters entered Syria to help the rebels, as well as doctors, aid workers, and “guerrilla good-will journalists” like this this guy from Japan: https://www.facebook.com/toshifumi.fujimoto.52?fref=ts . Meanwhile, Assad has benefited from thousands of ideologically-charged fighters from Lebanon (Hezbollah) and Iran (Revolutionary Guards).
It’s a total crap-storm that we’ve been content to sit and watch and now we’re blaming the rebels for muttering a few words of faith? There are no atheists in fox holes!
They say you can tell a lot about a guy by looking at his friends. Well, Assad is being actively supported with arms and supplies by Russia, Iran, North Korea, Hezbollah, and Venezuela.
The rebels are reportedly receiving covert support from Turkey (member of NATO), Saudi Arabia (US-ally), and Qatar (US-ally).
Let’s not let Islamaphobia confuse us from acknowledging the obvious good guys in Syria’s fight for freedom.
Still buying into the good guys, bad guys rhetoric? Known fighters of the so called FSA includes:
– the Jabhat al-Nusra group, the same group that film and kill Coalition troops in Iraq. They were documented killing civilians that are supposedly helping the government forces.
http://centralasiaonline.com/en_GB/articles/caii/features/main/2013/04/03/feature-01
And let’s not forget that Assad got more support from Coptic Christians in Iraq as opposed to the FSA.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1302/05/cnr.08.html
Not so black and white now is it?
If only someone would make a flow chart for us to clear up who to root for (the “good guys”) depending on who they’re fighting against. Rock-Paper-Scissor style.
You’re confusing names. The Syrian rebels include Free Syrian Army and al-Nusra, but FSA does not include al-Nusra (and does not encompass all rebels).
FSA is basically an organization run by officers of Syrian Army who rebelled, and it is run along the same organizational lines. It is not necessarily pro-democracy, but it is largely secular.
In fact, FSA and al-Nusra have had a few armed clashes between them already.
>> They say you can tell a lot about a guy by looking at his friends. Well, Assad is being actively supported with arms and supplies by Russia, Iran, North Korea, Hezbollah, and Venezuela.
>> The rebels are reportedly receiving covert support from Turkey (member of NATO), Saudi Arabia (US-ally), and Qatar (US-ally).
Since when being a US ally make someone a good guy? Saudi Arabia is an absolute theocratic monarchy. It’s a place where all other religions are banned for citizens, and foreigners have to be extremely low-key (smuggling in a Bible and giving it to a local could end up in public execution by beheading with a sword for both you and him). Worse yet, it’s not just a Muslim state, it’s a Wahhabi (Salafi) state – in other words, they are extremist religious fundamentalists. And as you’d expect, their government finances numerous Islamic schools all over the world which teach their strain of Islam, and which has proven to be a constant source of jihadi recruits that later end up in Afghanistan etc, or start blowing things up locally (as in e.g. Tatarstan or Indonesia).
The fact that Saudi Arabia is a strong ally of US is rather damning – as you yourself said, “you can tell a lot about a guy by looking at his friends”.
There are NO good guys in Syria’s civil war. Assad and the Ba’athists are the bad guys, but at least they protect the minorities as long as they don’t oppose the government. The Islamist are the worse guys–jihadists who slaughter wholesale every man, woman, and child who acts a little different.
The thing that struck me was the training environment they chose…among buildings and cottages, ya spose they put the ‘range hot’ flag up?
That is the cheap knock-off Chinese M99.