Yemen, Hudaydah- January 15, 2015

War was not something foreign to these lands. Crushed granite architecture filled the landscape. Scorching heat and golden crumbs of sand adorned every corner of this region.

‘Boom!’

Deafening silences occasionally broken by the sound of a gunshots in the distance, followed by howls and screams of pain, terror, and anger. Furthest away from all the sound and bloodshed, laying against the bare and naked landscape was a lonesome figure clad in coffee-stained tiger stripes. Tension attached itself firmly around him, as the pressure of the carbon tripod and heavy scope of the M24 Sniper rifle leaned against him.

Beads of sweat rapidly forming and rolling down from his brow, unaffecting the gaze fixated to the target beyond the scope. His prey standing almost nine hundred meters out, stood among a flock of other soldiers all adorning Rus Pats – the camouflage pattern very familiar to the battlefield, as patches of green, brown, and yellow spread itself evenly across the torso and lower regions. The Russian soldiers all occupied scouting the warzone unaware they were being watched from afar.

‘Bang!’

The deathly sound of a mix of recoil and gunpowder, as the bullet spliced the air in front of it.

‘Thud!’

Within moments the soldier fell to the ground, the floor now a decorated canvas of blood, that spewed out of his head. As though some silent signal had been given, in sync all Russian soldiers began to fan out covering every inch of a nine-hundred-meter perimeter of the dead body. However, by that time the shooter and his weapon had already vanished into the vastness of the desert region.