Sniper kills Qaeda-from 1½ mi. away

It was silent but deadly.

A British sniper set a world sharpshooting record by taking out two Taliban soldiers in Afghanistan from more than a mile and a half away -- a distance so great, experts say the terrorists wouldn't have even heard the shots.

Craig Harrison killed the two insurgents from an astounding distance of 8,120 feet -- or 1.54 miles -- in Helmand Province last November firing an Accuracy International L11583 long-range rifle.

"The first round hit a machine-gunner in the stomach and killed him outright," said Harrison, a corporal of horse in the British Army's Household Cavalry, the equivalent of a sergeant in the American military.

HARRISON

 

"The second insurgent grabbed the weapon and turned as my second shot hit him in the side. He went down, too," Harrison told the Sunday Times of London.

The shots -- measured via GPS -- surpassed the previous record held by Canadian Army Cpl. Rob Furlong, who killed an al Qaeda gunman from 7,972 feet in 2002.

Harrison's shots were roughly equal to the distance between the Statue of Liberty and Battery Park.

Experts called Harrison's sharp shooting as perfect as it gets.

"When you are shooting that far, if you miss by a hair, you miss by a mile," said John Plaster, a retired US Army sharp-shooting instructor and author of "The Ultimate Sniper." "That is about as precise as any marksmen on the planet could shoot."

He said Harrison's targets likely never knew what was coming.

"At a distance like that they cannot even see anyone and they would not even hear the muzzle report," Plaster said.

Harrison, who fired the bullets while his colleagues were under fire, said perfect weather helped him nail the perfect shot.

"[There was] no wind, mild weather, clear visibility," he said.

Harrison learned of his record nine days ago, when he returned to England. In the weeks after his record shot, he suffered a minor gunshot wound and broke his arms when his vehicle hit a roadside bomb.