17:02 01 April 2014
A 20-year-old army sniper shot a trigger switch of a suicide bomb vest killing six Taliban fighters with a single bullet. The shooting, which happened in December, was made at a range of 850 metres by a lance corporal in the Coldstream Guards in Kakaran, southern Afghanistan.
Lt Col Richard Slack, commanding officer of 9/12 Royal Lancers, said: “The guy was wearing a vest. He was identified by the sniper moving down a tree line and coming up over a ditch.” He told The Daily Telegraph: “He had a shawl on. It rose up and the sniper saw he had a machine gun.
“They were in contact and he was moving to a firing position. The sniper engaged him and the guy exploded.
“There was a pause on the radio and the sniper said, 'I think I’ve just shot a suicide bomber’. The rest of them were killed in the blast.”