Abu Tahsin al-Salhi

Abu Tahsin al-Salihi; (Arabic: أبو تحسين الصالحي ‎ 1953 – 29 September 2017) was an Iraqi veteran sniper. A volunteer in the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces, he is credited with killing over 384 ISIS members during the Iraqi Civil War, receiving the nicknames “The Sheikh of Snipers” and “Hawk Eye.”

According to the Popular Mobilization Forces spokesman, al-Salihi was killed as he advanced on Hawija in Iraq. His funeral took place on 30 September 2017.

Prior to the Iraqi Civil War, al-Salihi participated in the Yom Kippur War, the Iran–Iraq War, the invasion of Kuwait, the Gulf War, and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. According to al-Salihi, in the Yom Kippur War he was part of an Iraqi brigade fighting on Golan Heights. Around May 2015 al-Salihi joined the Popular Mobilization Forces and became stationed in the Makhoul Mountains in northern Iraq, armed with a Steyr rifle. Al-Salihi began fighting ISIS in Jurf Al Nasr. He was trained in his sniper skills by the Russian military.

Months before the Yom Kippur War in the 1970s, he was nominated to travel to Belarus to train in a course and took second place. The first war he fought in was the Yom Kippur War in 1973, where he was stationed in the Golan Heights in the 5th mountainous brigade. The second war he fought in was the Second Kurdish–Iraqi War in 1974. From the start of the uprising until 2014, he joined the Sadr brigade where he participated in the liberation of many provinces in Iraq, but he didn't fit well in this brigade, so he joined Liwa Ali Al Akbar and this is where his skills began to show. He had 384 confirmed kills.

Abu Tahsin al-Salihi was born Ali Jiyad Obaid al-Salihi (Arabic: علي جياد عبيد الصالحي ‎) and is known by his nom de guerre The Hawk Eye or teknonym Abu Tahsin. He was born in 1953, had eleven children, five girls and six boys. He is a Shia Muslim. He traveled to Kuwait in the 1970s and worked many jobs there, two of which being a shepherd of cows and camels. He had a French rifle to protect him and to hunt rabbits with, from this he gained knowledge in hunting and shooting.