We read all the time about the American military effort to stop handmade bombs in Iraq. But we don’t know much about the insurgents who build and plant them. Greg Grant, who just got back from Iraq, has one of the most detailed looks yet into the IED supply chain. Here’s a snippet. But be sure to read the whole story, in this month’s Defense Technology International.
According to U.S. military intelligence, more than 100 cells operate in Iraq. Most limit attacks to roadways and neighborhoods near where the cell members live. Cells advertise their technical skills on the Internet, posting streaming video of IED attacks to jihadist web sites. The most highly skilled IED cells operate as a package and hire themselves out to the larger insurgent networks on a contract basis, changing affiliations for more money.
While ideology motivates many guerrilla fighters in Iraq, some officers believe the financial motivation behind insurgent attacks has been underestimated. You get a disaffected guy who is making $100 a month and you tell him go place this IED and Ill give you $300, and if you blow something up well give you a $700 bonus, and thats a pretty dramatic reward, says Army Lt. Col. Shawn Weed, a military intelligence officer in Baghdad
Payday is the beginning of the month, says Army Lt. Col. Ross Brown, who commands a cavalry squadron in the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment (3ACR) operating south of Baghdad. We can track it on a calendar; hes buying IEDs on this date, then hes building them, now hes putting them out on the roads, then theyre blowing up and then hes out of money and munitions and he starts over…
Under Saddam Hussein, Iraq was saturated with weapons plants and munitions depots. U.S. intelligence indicates that after the regime fell, former officials moved large quantities of munitions into pre-selected caches, many south of Baghdad, from which insurgents draw explosives for IEDs. Army Capt. Ben Crombe, an intelligence officer in 3ACR, says there is a single supplier for many of these cells.
The suppliers provide explosive material to locations across the capital. Components are assembled at well-concealed bomb factories and moved from areas likely to be searched by American patrols to holding areas until the device is emplaced. Because of the frequency of U.S. raids on suspected insurgent hideouts, IEDs are kept in what the military calls rolling weapons caches cars with false bottoms or trunks loaded with explosives that blend in with the thousands of vehicles on Iraqs crowded city streets.
Individual cells have a specific signature and follow a pattern, Funk says, such as the time of day they carry out IED attacks and where they place bombs, while different cells have access to different types and sizes of munitions. Most of the bombs are unique in construction because the bomb maker is forced to use materials at hand.
I am fascinated by this military structure. A decentralized army that trades weapons, expertise, and personnel from unit to unit using currency as an exchange medium. Computer games using this model have been around for a long time, where generals are allowed to “buy” weapons to upgrade their forces, but this is the most complete realization of the model I think I’ve yet heard of in the real world since the Late Middle Ages.
It’s frightening the sophistication of the devices being used — pressure plates, infrared triggers, and even rudimentry explosively formed projectile attacks (which is the same concept behind the latest air delivered anti-tank weaponry we have)!
This is not kids and farmers planting sticks of dynamite in the dirt next to the road — this is a well trained, well educated guerilla army using sophisticated weaponry. What a mess.
Good Afternoon Folks,
A good Post on IED’s. Although I’m sure that the general public knows only part of the story about the IED’s in Afghanistan and Iraq, as it shold be, but it appears that there is a patten in the IED’s. This pattern is so strong of methods and materials used to this point that it appears that in reality there is a rather small number of bomb makers.
As I recall when I was in Vietnam we could tell which area they were in by the types of booby traps and mines we encountered. This doesn’t appear to be the case in Afghanistaqn and Iraq.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
Not kids? Hey I’ve seen kids building toy robots that use the same gear (pressure plates, infrared triggers etc)… This is basic electronics stuff, you can read about in any library or get a magazine subscription, couple that with people who are willing to go abroad and actually learn something (yep those foreign students learning here in North America while the North American kids are becoming lawyers and bar stars of the school drinking team), those kids go home and teach people how to get the job done, and that job is dealing death.
Basic shaped charges are not hard to make, anyone with access to a shooters/demolitions handbook can come up with something resembling a shaped charge, an acquaintance with his own explosives company once described to me how to make rudimentary shaped charges.
MD
Notice how the bush team failed to secure these weapons when the iraqi army fell. We were more concerned about securing the oil ministry than the weapons depots. And not these weapons are killing inocent civilians and our guys.
To all of my brothers and sisters in country,
there is nothing I can say to yall that would make your job any easyer. The work must & will be done I humbely and honestly offer this thaught.
when the rounds fly and we are affraid remember that we are the best … the very best in the world if ont for your rights thats what you would come home to.
IF NOT FOR YOU!!!!
GOD SPEED MEN & WOMEN HOOOA!!
SEE YA SOON
THE BEERS NO ME E– MAIL FOR THE ADDRESS
RWILHARPJR@MSN.COM
A PATRIOT FOR EVER!
GOD BLESS.
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