A member of Canada’s Joint Task Force 2, a counter-terrorism special forces unit, has just broken the world record for the longest confirmed kill shot.
The elite special forces sniper shot and killed an ISIS insurgent from 3,540m. The sniper made the incredible 2.2 mile shot using a McMillan TAC-50 rifle fired from a high-rise building. It took just under 10 seconds for the bullet to reach the target.
The kill shot was confirmed by video and other data collected independently from JTF2. “This is an incredible feat,” said a military spokesperson to the Globe and Mail. “It is a world record that might never be equaled.”
British sniper Craig Harrison held the previous record with a 2,475m shot that killed a Tailban gunner in 2009. Harrison fired a .338 Lapua Magnum rifle.
The skill required to make a shot over 11,000 ft requires extends well beyond simple marksmanship. “It is at the distance where you have to account not just for the ballistics of the round, which change over time and distance, you have to adjust for wind, and the wind would be swirling,” said a spokesperson from Canadian Special Forces in an interview with The Sun. “You have to adjust for him firing from a higher location downward and as the round drops you have to account for that. And from that distance you actually have to account for the curvature of the Earth.”
Approximately 200 men with JTF2 special forces are currently active in Northern Iraq as part of a counter-terrorism operation.