The HS50 heavy sniper rifle built in Austria by Steyr-Mannlicher.Clearly the Austrians still hate the Americans, and they are hoping that the Iranians and Iraqis will kill plenty of US troops. Why else sell precision weapons to a rogue regime whose President professes to admire Hitler, and also swears it is his sacred duty to destroy the State of Israel? Recall the political hysteria just two years ago when the Austrian press went after California Governor Arnold Swarzenegger, all because he "allowed" the state penal system to execute a convicted murderer. Lunatic politicians in Austria, including the Fuhrer of the Austrian "Green Party", demanded that Arnold's original Austrian citizenship be revoked. His birthplace, Graz, Austria, threatened to take his name off the town sports arena. It became rather obvious that their shrill and vicious attitude toward Arnold was simply because he's a Republican.
Now we learn that that the Austrians have sold enough sniper rifles to equip a battalionof Iraqi terrorists, using an Iranian "End User" arms export certificate. That's just about as evil as Russian President Putin supplying Iran with a new generation S.A.M. missile system, to defend Iran's rogue nuclear weapons program. Shame on those rotten Austrian's. Let's hope that Iran doesn't send a few dozen of these rifles to the Taliban. Our troops in Afghanistan don't wear anything that will stop the Austrian round for the HS50. Here's the story by a Defence correspondent at THE TELEGRAPH:
IRAQI INSURGENTS USING AUSTRIAN RIFLES FROM IRAN
Feb.. 13 - Austrian sniper rifles that were exported to Iran have been discovered in the hands of Iraqi terrorists. More than 100 of the.50 calibre weapons, capable of penetrating body armour, have been discovered by American troops during raids. The Steyr HS50 is a long range, high precision rifle. The guns were part of a shipment of 800 rifles that the Austrian company, Steyr-Mannlicher, exported legally to Iran last year.
The sale was condemned in Washington and London because officials were worried that the weapons would be used by insurgents against British and American troops.
Within 45 days of the first HS50 Steyr Mannlicher rifles arriving in Iran, an American officer in an armoured vehicle was shot dead by an Iraqi insurgent using the weapon.
Over the last six months American forces have found small caches of the £10,000 rifles but in the last 24 hours a raid in Baghdad brought the total to more than 100, US defence sources reported.
The find is the latest in a series of discoveries that indicate that Teheran is providing support to Iraq's Shia insurgents. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, yesterday denied that Iran had supplied weapons to Iraqi insurgents. But on Sunday US officials in Baghdad displayed a range of weapons they claimed had originated in Iran. They said 170 American and British soldiers had been killed by such weapons. The discovery of the sniper rifles will further encourage those in Washington who want to see Iran's uranium-enriching facilities destroyed before a nuclear weapon is produced.
The [British] Foreign Office expressed "serious concerns" over the sale of the rifles last year and Britain protested to the Austrian government.
A Foreign Office spokesman said last night: "Although we did make our worries known the sale unfortunately went ahead and now the potential that these weapons could fall into the wrong hands appears to have happened." The rifle can pierce all body armour from up to a mile and penetrate armoured Humvee troop carriers. It is highly accurate and fires a round called an armour piercing incendiary, a bullet that the Iranians manufacture.
The National Iranian Police Organisation bought the rifles allegedly to use them against drug smugglers in an £8 million order placed with Steyr in 2005. The company was given permission to export them by the Austrian government, which is not a NATO member.
