On Wednesday, I talked briefly about how Iraqi insurgents’ are increasingly using armor-piercing “explosively formed projectiles” to form the deadly hearts of their improvised bombs.
Today, the Times is reporting that “many of the new, more sophisticated roadside bombs… have been designed in Iran.”
The spread of the new weapons seems to suggest a new and unusual area of cooperation between Iranian Shiites and Iraqi Sunnis to drive American forces out — a possibility that the commanders said they could make little sense of given the increasing violence between the sects in Iraq.
Unlike the improvised explosive devices devised from Iraq’s vast stockpiles of missiles, artillery shells and other arms, the new weapons are specially designed to destroy armored vehicles, military bomb experts say. The bombs feature shaped charges, which penetrate armor by focusing explosive power in a single direction and by firing a metal projectile embedded in the device into the target at high speed. The design is crude but effective if the vehicle’s armor plating is struck at the correct angle, the experts said.
Since they first began appearing about two months ago, some of these devices have been seized, including one large shipment that was captured last week in northeast Iraq coming from Iran…
Pentagon and intelligence officials say that some shipments of the new explosives have contained both components and fully manufactured devices, and may have been spirited into Iraq along the porous Iranian border by the Iranian-backed, anti-Israeli terrorist group Hezbollah, or by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. American commanders say these bombs closely matched those that Hezbollah has used against Israel.
“The devices we’re seeing now have been machined,” said a military official who has access to classified reporting on the insurgents’ bomb-making abilities. “There is evidence of some sophistication.”
{ 32 comments… read them below or add one }
Aren’t there at least 100 TONs of RDX and HMX explosive out there looted from but a single site and Allah (or his servants) only know where? And who knows what else?
Isn’t the whole point of these explosives is there ability to make high quality shaped explosive charges?
You know, I get a bit tired of seeing these ‘reports’ in the NYT that offer ‘evidence’ on a hearsay basis. How much credence do we give ‘a military official’ after the bullshit published up to the Iraq fiasco.
Given the level of sophistication in Iraqi culture before we bombed ‘em back to the stone age, I’d say there is a good chance they might have a machinist or two around with the motivation and/or training to produce a device the was ‘machined’ and had a level ‘of some sophistication’. CRAP!! If this really is the level of our military Intel, it’s no wonder we are getting our butts kicked……
How am I supposed to believe anything that comes from the NYTimes or the military, or the govt.?
Does this mean they want to invade Iran???
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N05211638.htm
WASHINGTON, Aug 5 (Reuters) – The British general commanding multinational troops in southeastern Iraq said on Friday that worries about Iranian influence in Iraq appeared to be based largely on speculation, not facts.
The comment to Pentagon reporters by British Royal Marines Maj. Gen. J.B. Dutton came as senior U.S. officials continued to charge that Tehran’s government was actively trying to sidetrack Baghdad’s fledging democracy.
“The question of Iranian involvement is always a difficult one because there’s a lot of speculation about it and not many facts,” Dutton said in a teleconference interview from his Basra headquarters in southern Iraq.
What’s Farsi for “Tonkin Gulf”?
Di di mau, y’all!
Nick: If I understand right, HDX and the like aren’t really what makes shaped charges. The important part is machining copper (or another metal) into the proper form.
Eek: legit point.
But machining tools is the common stuff. A lathe is not a horribly sophisticated machine, there are HOW many millions of them? And if you are willing to be slow, a file and saw may be sufficient.
You have three components to manufacture an effective IED:
Raw Materials
Machining Tools
Skill
Skill has been democratized, we have so much information already out there about the decentralized but very effective communication infrastructures built: One insurgent (eg, some former Baath party commando) discovers something and in a couple weeks, every insurgent knows it.
Machining is common: Any metal shop should have the level of machining needed to build these shaped charges: a lathe and a mill. Or, if patient, some of the machining could even be done by hand. Some insurgent could get grandma to cut copper pieces.
Its often the materials that are the limit, at least for anybody in the first world (it was a significant limit on the London bombers, if they had HMX or RDX, they would have probably killed more people and been able to detonate more reliably). But in Iraq, thanks to our gross mishandling of known caches, combined with who knows how many unknown caches, materials aren’t a problem either.
If anything, what may be the limit is not explosive but COPPER. You need to have a pretty big hunk to machine into what you want (unless the copper pieces are mosaics pieced together), so unless you have a furnice (and could therefore cast the parts you need from scrap, and then you would probably cast bits, and a furnice ain’t quite as stealthy as a machine shop), where is the copper comming from?
The proof/suggestion of some significant unified actor would NOT be common design theme (which suggests many manufacturers following the same idea), but common implementation (eg, IDENTICAL shapes & sizes rather than close. Casting of metal parts intead of machining. Common (single tool) marks on multiple IEDs).
Some things (eg, mosaic’ed copper pieces, evidence of hand tools) would strongly suggest local design and implementation.
So there are things which could tell you whether some single significant entitity is making these IEDs, or we have the distributed network which appears to be happening. And the presence of shaped and formed explosive charges, given the information and materials available in Iraq, is perfectly consistent with the distributed-network model of the insurgency.
Personally i am appaled that no one in America has yet had the guts to put that norwegian who posted earlier in his place. Who does he think he is, telling us how to fight the war on terror when the countries he’s suggesting we have the balls to fight to begin with. And as for all the bashing of american military intelligence, ours is the finest military intelligence collection in the world. From satelites in space to the marines and soldiers on the ground everything is state of the art and held to highest levels of profeesionalism. The field of fire doctrine being bashed by this walking heap eurotrash has gvien us the 100 hour gropund war, victory in Afghanistan, victory in major combat operations in Iraq, not to mention the breaking of almost every offensive military with the exception of those set by another american army, Patton’s third. And as for our alleged greed and facism, would somebody please tell that idiot he would be speaking german right now if it weren’t for the greedy facist americans. And for norways “50 years of succesful peacekeeping” when was the last time norway had the nuts to stand up for what is right and bring democracy to 50 million people
Let me think…. NEVER!
So until that happens mr. norwegian stop your belly aching and say thank you for once. You owe us your very freedom, but we’ll settle for your respect.
Further to Kier’s comment:
“America Kicks A-S!”
“YEAH!”
“You want a piece of this?!?”
“F–k yeah!”
as everyone knows,WE DO THE THINGS THAT THE REST OF THE WORLD WANT DO!BUT IN THE END THEY AS A WHOLE ARE GLAD WE DID.REMEMBER COWARDS CAN TALK THE TALK,BUT THEY CANT WALK THE WALK.
I HAVE BEEN TO IRAQ AND I KNOW ITS WORKING!
DEESE OUT
PS-THANKS TO OUR ITALIAN FRIENDS ANTICA BABILONIA
Kier, if American intel is such hot shit, than how come we have NO CLUE as to the Table of Organization of the insurgents, after nearly two and a half years?
While their intel is so curst good they can set up and bag an entire squad in support of a Marine sniper team. Which they did, just last week.
I completely agree. American MI needs massive restructuring. But I also agree that the U.S. is doing all it can to fight for what it belives in. Aternatively, what other choice does it have? When any superpower is attacked, they will retaliate. And yes, although some of America’s actions have been unwarranted to their claim, their actions are still warranted nonetheless. When a countries’ government is regularly commiting war crimes, is not representative of its citizens and is not willing to negotiate or improve itself, then action needs to be taken. Am I implying that America should be the country to take action? no. I agree with the suggestion about bringing in international peacekeeping troops. I think that every country should be able to voice its opinion and contribute to the international cause. But this statement falls short when placed into current context. International enforcement cannot occur without the support from those respective countries. The U.S. is not opposed to outside help, but thus far, there has been no indication to send such an elite force of 5000 to Iraq. And as far an international aid assistance is considered, yes Norway has done an incredible job in regard to assistance, and yes the U.S. does have a large amount of tied aid, but is not alone in this respect. Criticism will not resolve the world’s problems, nor will the ill judgment of a superpowers military.
To this day, there has never been desicive military action against two opposing democracies, and if democracy continues to be upheld, there never will be.
It’s absurd to suggest that the Iranians would be helping the *Sunni* insurgents – as insane as imagining the Reverend Ian Paisley smuggling arms for the IRA, or more so. The Iranians want an Iraq dominated by pro-Iranian, Shia politicians – in short, SCIRI. They don’t want the people they fought for nine years. It’s that simple.
Re: Copper. Anyone care to guess where those power lines they kept cutting down went? Everyone thought they were doing it for profit – but who was buying? Classic 4GW – put out the lights, turn a profit, and gain the resources needed to upgrade your bombs all in one insurgent trifecta.
Does anyone here remember that old military saw, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”? During the hayday of the terrorists 70′s, we had the IRA training in the same camps and networking with the PLO, Sunni and Shia working together is not really surprising or all that unrealistic. As always, they will turn on each other again, if no other enemy is there. Iran has seemed to have learn a valuable lesson as well; it is better,less expensive, and safer to fight a proxy war than to go head to head with a Superpower. For the price of a few machined parts (the equivilant of a single factory’s output for a day) they frighten the weak at heart, give ammunition to the President’s opposition, kill our soldiers, and receive the praise and acclamation of those who refuse to stand against fundamental evils (such as expressed by even some here). For them, it is a win win situation with very little cost. We should raise that cost and make such interference, very, very expensive.
Let us not waste time and our soldiers lives by invading, let us rather destroy critical infrastructure, such as their oil pipelines, their tankers, their comm centers, their nuclear testing facilities. Anything they value of a seculiar nature is fair game. For every IED that goes off, they lose something. We say nothing, we give no warning, we make no statement afterwards. We just do it.
Next, we set up a DMZ. Anything or anyone that attempts to cross is destroyed without warning, without reprieve, without regret or sympathy. Make them more frightened of us than of anything else on this planet and let them know the price of their evil is death. However, if they leave us and our friends alone, they keep on breathing.
Until theres some credible evidence that the Iranians are trying to create anything but a civil society on their borders, lets keep the Iran war-talk to a minimum please.
Dayon – you sound a bit like bin Laden.
To all you head cutters, spleen venters, and mass murderers out there (Dayon and Jds, you especially) – you are the problem, or at least, people like you are the problem. The solution, of course, is to move you all to a small moon around jupiter and arm you with nuclear hand-grenades. The cost would be born by televising the events that would follow, and humanity would be rid of a pool of potential war criminals.
It just seems so right, ya know.
You do not need a machine shop to make a crude self forming penatrator devise. Shape charges are very simple to make one can use a #10 can and make about a 5 pound shape charge and as far as the penatrator goes it does not have to be copper, copper is used because of the way it is affected by heat, copper melts very uniformly. A steal plate shaped for the cone of the charge will also work the devise will just not be as effective. That can be compensated for by increasing the size. Shape charges are not rocket science I learned this stuff in basic demo classes in the 80′s
What “Kerry” wrote should be heard by as AMERICANS as can be. Sure the media is biased. They are the backbone of the ‘demon-craps’. When we can get real news, from real reporters, that will be the only time that the country will believe anything. One correction though–This war started in November 1979, by IRAN !! and it continued with every bombing of American outposts.We need to get off the political bandwagon and on the side of our fighting men & womwn-GOD BLESS THEM!!
BIGMACM – one correction though – the war was actually started by the US in the 1950s when it overthrew a popularily elected and democratic governement in Iran, and installing the brutal and repessive Shah. When the Iranian popular revolution happened, the US took the Shah in and refused to hand him over. Its a bit as if Russia had offered Hitler refuge at the end of WWI. Only then did the Iranians take hostages. The war by the US on Iran was continued throughout the Iran-Iraq war when it supported Saddam Hussein, supplying him with cluster bombs, chemical weapons, and satelite photography.
Iran was one of the cradles of civilisation, and thousands of years before the first verstiges of european civilation, King Cyrus of Persia was declaring that “all men are created equal”.
Every nation choses or makes its enemies. If there is enimnity, one has to ask where it comes from, and to take some measure of responsibility for it.
And you, DM, sound a bit like a small, not very bright child who resorts to name calling when an intellectual resonse escape him (the irony does not escape me). We are dealing with a real life, and for many civilians in Iraqi, death situation(kudos to Kerby, by the way, for his update on the actual situation in that land).
You see, the problem is that there are people who, with no real provocation, just lame justifications (I and my people are failures, so it must be all your fault!), attack and murder those who have done them no harm. They also attack and butcher those who are even of their own faith who just wish to live their lives in peace and be left alone.
Additional parts of the problem are people who would excuse this behavior (I and my people are failures, so it must be all your fault! You’re so right, we’re soo horrobile, it’s alright if you kill and maim and butcher the innocent, so longs as it isn’t me).
The solutions I have offered have worked against the sources of terrorism before, they will work again. They may not be PC, but they will work. Yes, you may state that my solutions are rather bloody, however they are effective in stopping a proxy war. So you must decide, do you set someone like me on these murderers or do you accept their murder of the innocent? Do you dry up their resources and deny them safe haven or do you allow their killing of innocent men, women, and children to continue? Come, come, DM, give us a more practical solution than planetary relocation. We could, of course, send you as special embassary to any of the terrorists cell with arms full of love and flowers and good will toward all, and see how long you last. Like you said, “It just seems so right, ya know.”
“You see, the problem is that there are people who, with no real provocation, just lame justifications, attack and murder those who have done them no harm.” – are you referring to the US to to the suicide bombers here?
I wasnt resorting to name calling, but instead to giving a bit of background. The history of the situation is quite clear; up until the 50s, the US was a hero in the region, but since then it has become universally reviled. This is partially as a result of the actions the US has taken in the region. Therefore, if there is enumnity, take some responsibility for it.
Dayon, enimnity towards what is arguably the most democratic nation in the region serves no-one, and certainly doest serve the goal of encouraging liberal democracy, as we can see from the results of the recent Iranian elections.
As for your retribution strategy, well, you might want to do a google on “iterated prisoners dilemma” (I found this introductory reference http://www.netalive.org/topics/13965). Either way, your solution seems extreme.
Dayon, are you Israeli? You solution reminds me of how the Israelis deal with the Palestinians. I dont think anyone could say that the history of the relationship between Israelis and Palestinians could be viewed as anything but a disaster.
Its amazing the justifications the right wingnuts are throwing out. Kerby Did you read the article: Bush great iraqi adventure is breading a new generation of terrorists all around the world at a quickening pace. The result is increases in terrorist worldwide. We’ve shattered our reputation and with it our ability to build the kinds of international coaltions that served us so well so many times in the past. And we’ve massively weakened the army and marines. And gotten so many killed. And the only numbers that are going up are the number of terrorists and the number of attacks.
Nope, not Jewish, raised as a Jehovah’s Witness. Scottish-American with alot of French-German )thrown in by Ma’s side of things) ancestry. And a litle history for you. We waged war with Iraqi back when they invaded Kuwait (that was in my days with MI). After that, Suddam had his military fire on our planes (that’s attacking Americans, to you boys who don’t think soldiers count as citizens) that were flying overflights to keep him from doing chemical weapon attacks on the Kurds. Did Suddam have chemical weapons? There’s a Red Cross film of the Kurdish casualities of such attacks. Ask them.
And Iran “the most democratic nation in the region”? Please. That statement is so patently wrong, it needs no rebuttal. Sorry, son, that snake oil don’t sell here.
As to the Israelies and there dealings, didn’t you notice that terrorists attacks against targets in Israel went down after they built that wall to make insertions into their territory more difficult and that the Palesitinians of Hamas finally came to the table only after Israel started targeting the leaders of Hamas (as the only “assets” they really valued were their own hides)? Funny, the rest of the world did.
And finally: the majority of the people being murdered in Iraqi today, are Iraqies. People in the markets getting the day’s food, people looking for work in the police departments and security forces because they believe it’s right and honorable service, I say again, are being murdered by those you appear to revere. And any who help, support, give aid or comfort, in whatever way to those murderers or who, in any way, approve or excuse what they are doing or for some sick and cowardly reason try to equate those murderers with our troops are just as guilty of their crimes. Those that support these murderers are enablers. In law, it is called “Accessory Before the Fact” and “Accessory After the Fact” to murder. And that, dear readers is truly the bottom line here.
re: left wingnut new “Aaron”
“new generation of terrorists”
idjit, they’ve been breeding new gens of terrorists since your man Jimmy Carter caused the fall of iran. Not to mention the Israeli experience before and after statehood. Time to wakey wakey..
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Monster: kill young tiger, tiger, tiger champ, or giant tiger. Some advice, stick with young tigers until level 15. You get more xp per hit on young tigers, trust me. Reward: 15300xp, 4000 Silkroad gold, 5000skill points.
Each class has its own set of stances, which level separately from the character itself, and this Sword of the New World Vis makes each character class highly customizable. From the physically imposing fighter to the mystical wizard to the crafty scout to the powerful elementalist to the bold musketeer, the array of skills and abilities available to players is vast.
She did not like me help her, so she often search which place sell the cheap penya, although I was very sad, but the same I was very admire her, because she was very strong.
Will not give up the love, Flyff, let the love to fly.
In the end, I hope all my friends in the game can happy every day and had more and more cronous money.
In the end, I hope all my friends in the game can happy every day and had more and more cronous money.
I already satiated. Before my left buy Archlord gold for her just as the end present
Now when I talked with them, I often told them how to bought the cheap Final Fantasy XI Gold, they all said that I had a great changed, I am very happy
Now when I talked with them, I often told them how to bought the cheap Final Fantasy XI Gold, they all said that I had a great changed, I am very happy