By Wu Min and Xie Xibo
BEIJING, Oct. 19 (ChinaMil) -- The "Sharp Blade 2018" International Sniper Competition kicked off at a training base of the Chinese Armed Police Force (APF) deep into the Yanshan Mountain nearby Beijing on Thursday. More than 100 top snipers from 21 countries including China, Belarus, Central African Republic, Hungary, Israel and Pakistan participated in the competition.
The aim of this competition is to build a platform for skills exchange and display, help the counter-terrorism forces from different countries to learn from each other, make common progress and enhance friendship, further promote the capacity building for counter-terrorism special operations, and constantly raise the professional skills and real combat capability of the sniper teams.
The five-day competition consists of four categories such as challenge sniping individual sniping, group sniping, and comprehensive combat sniping. There are a total of 12 events including lurk sniping, duel sniping, selective sniping on valuable target and long-distance search sniping in mountains and so forth. The Army, Navy, and Air Force of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) each sent two sniper teams to take part in the competition. And the APF sent five sniper teams such as the "Falcon Commando" and the "Snow Leopard Commando" to the competition.
The "Sharp Blade" International Sniper Competition is an important biennial event held by the Chinese APF. The first competition was held in Beijing from August 22 to 25, 2016.