American Sniper: 9 Things The Film Lied About

3. He Didn't Kill The Sniper Mustafa (In Fact They Probably Never Even Crossed Paths)

One consistent theme running throughout the film is the sniper vs. sniper face-off Kyle has with a man named Mustafa, culminating in him and his elusive nemesis finally battling to the death across a mile distance, with Kyle emerging as the sole survivor. Mustafa was real, that's long since been established and his legend and influence during the war was comparable that that of Kyle's. As the film correctly depicts he was a Syrian, believed to be a former Olympic marksman, and responsible for the deaths of countless marines until his own death at the hands of US snipers. However, his interaction with Kyle consists of one passing sentence in his book. Nothing more. Many legends became attributed to Mustafa over the course of the war, with almost any impossible shot from the insurgents eventually being attributed to him. Such is the nature of sniper warfare that even if the two did have their sights trained on one another at some point there's no way either of them would have known for sure.