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[Thread] #ISIS snipers in #Egypt|ian #Sinai province #ISIS-SP.

They operate mainly in the northeastern coastal areas of the peninsula and are well known and regarded as some of the best snipers of ISIS.

Their most commonly used weapons are Romanian PSL DMRs with their 1/15
standard scope and no modifications. The Egyptian military uses PSL only very limited, so they could get some of them, but probably not all, other sources are smuggled from Libya or bought from militant Palestinian groups in Gaza. 2/15
A rarely used rifle is the SVD Dragunov DMR which was probably captured, bought or stolen by the Egyptian military. A similarly rarely used rifle is an FAL, which is mostly equipped with a Picatiny Scope mount and a rifle scope. They were obtained in the same way as the SVD. 3/15
A moderately used sniper rifle is the M24 SWS and Remington 700 hunting rifle. The M24 SWS were probably captured, bought or stolen from the Egyptian military. The Remington 700 style rifle was probably stolen or brought to the group by a hunter when he joined the group. 4/15
The rifle scope of the hunting rifle is an low-quality Chinese model, probably smuggled with Gaza as the destination and either confiscated or purchased from the smugglers. 5/15
The second most common rifle is the Iranian AM-50 Sayyad AMRs, which were most likely purchased from a militant Gaza group, whom were supplied them by the Iranians. They used the standard scope, which is an Iranian copy of the Schmidt & Bender 3x12x50mm PMII. Also note that 6/15
some serial numbers have been obscured, similar to Sayyads in Gaza.

This AM-50 Sayyad was used by one of her snipers in a video in March 2018 and captured by the Egyptian army from ISIS in April 2018. In contrast to ISIS Central fighters, these have no thermal imaging or 7/15
night vision scopes. This limits their abilities at night. Some of the spotters and some of the snipers carry AKM/AKMS as backup and self-defence weapons if they are spotted.

They nearly camouflage all their weapon and scopes. Scopes are camoflanged with MARPAT Desert style 8/15
fabric or rifle Ghillies. The other areas are mostly camouflaged with tan camoband. The Ghillie suits are homemade and resemble those of militant Gaza groups. That these are homemade could mean two things, that they are professionals, bc professionals built their ghillie 9/15
themselves or because they have no access to of factory ones. In general, the factories are inferior to the homemade ones, but are used by ISIS generally more often. Some weapons are also camouflaged with a Ghillie rifle, which is bascily the same as the normal Ghillie, but 10/15
speffecialy made for as a rifle. There is not much information about their training, but from their tactics and execution of attacks it could mean that at least some of their snipers are ex military and specially trained military snipers. One thing that might indicate this 11/15
is the use of professional targets during training. Although they also shoot at ceramic pods and balloons but they do that likely for propaganda. Also what indicates that they are proffesionls are that they use a spotter. A spotter helps for example in identifying the 12/15
target and calculate (but I don't know if they do that, because there is no proof of it).

In the clips they showed in vids, they hit the targets, but most dont seem life threatening. Only a few shots seem to kill the target. One might assume that these might indicate that 13/15
there was no ex-military in the ranks of them bc of this bad shot placement. But the military is generally bad at precisely hitting targets. The snipers are used in two ways: The DMR and AMR snipers are sometines embedded in attacking groups to provide precision fire and 14/15
precision anti-vehicle capability. Or they work independently as a sniper team with a spotter and a sniper. 15/15

Thanks to @BewilderedArab some help. Some pictures/videos via @Oded121351 and @oryxspioenkop.
Conclusion: Their arms are sufficient for their ops but are not moded in contrast to other prov.. Their use of homemade ghillies, spotters and some other tactics might indicate that at least some of them were ex-military. The sources of the arms are the Egypt gov, Libya and Gaza.
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