Posted on 11/04/2005 10:24:48 AM PST by ncountylee
WASHINGTON, Nov 4 (Reuters) - Sophisticated technology and explosives to make improvised bombs killing U.S. and other troops in Iraq are apparently entering the country virtually unhindered from Iran, a senior British general said on Friday.
Royal Marines Maj. Gen. James Dutton spoke with reporters in a teleconference from Basra in southern Iraq a day after the Pentagon announced plans to increase efforts to find ways to defend against improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, used by insurgents that are the leading cause of U.S. casualties in the war.
Dutton said he did not know whether the Iranian government or its intelligence service, or perhaps other unspecified groups, were helping Iraqi insurgents smuggle explosives or completed bombs across the porous border into Iraq.
"I simply don't know whether this is official Iranian policy," said Dutton, who commands a 13,000-strong multinational division in southeastern Iraq.
"The IED explosives, particularly the advanced technology IEDs ... we believe the technology is coming across that border," Dutton said. "We're not, regrettably, capturing these arms as they come across the border."
"You wouldn't expect me to go into great details about how we know that. But we're pretty convinced that that is where these things are coming from," Dutton added.
Dutton said the devices in question included crude but effective "explosively formed projectiles," which are cylinders filled with explosives and capped with a copper or steel plate. The plate penetrates the armor of military vehicles, to devastating effect.
The general said coalition forces in his region were working closely with the Iraqi government and border security guards to better police the area, and noted that at least one large cache of explosives was found by Iraqi forces in August.
IRAN DENIES CHARGES
Britain and the United States have accused Iran or the Tehran-backed Lebanese group Hizbollah of providing military expertise to Iraqi insurgents behind attacks on British troops in southern Iraq.
Iran denies meddling in Iraq and says the accusations against it are tied to efforts by Washington and London to report Tehran to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions over its nuclear program.
The Pentagon said it is considering putting a more senior officer in charge of a task force set up last year to deal with the homemade bombs. The United States said it was also adding more experts to the effort.
The Pentagon said more than half of all U.S. casualties in Iraq stem from homemade bombs, which are often buried along a road or hidden inside debris or even animal carcasses and usually detonated by remote control or with a timer. The Pentagon said on Friday that 2,035 U.S. soldiers had been killed and nearly 15,500 more wounded in a war that started in March 2003.
"I think we're not completely certain where the manufacture takes place," said Dutton of the devices.
"We know where the technological know-how comes from and we suspect where the parts come from," he said. "Where they are actually put together is something that we're working on."
more detail on an earlier topic
*more detail on an earlier topic*
sorry - that wasn't you... different freeper... name escapes me
Not a problem, interesing article.
kewl - just didn't want to give you too bad of a "WTH?" moment
now... I gotta go through my archive and find the freeper I meant to ping :(
Proving once again that "pourous borders" are a deadly threat to all; even those with their heads in the sand.
I get "WTH?" moments on FR all the time. Sometimes from the articles, sometimes from the posts. One more wouldn't kill me.
If you remember the title why not try a title search?
I don't recall the title, only the content
IIRC "Pentagon" was in the title.
I'll give that a whack.
We've made the fatal mistake of limiting our scope of what this war requires (to wit, subjugation of Syria and Iran) for the sake of protecting the public from confronting a politically incorrect military draft.
Quite the shame, really. How can we leave Iraq? Iran will shred them.
ping - more on the IED/EFP problem (and probable source)
got it - freeper name "etcetera"
["Sophisticated technology and explosives to make improvised bombs killing U.S. and other troops in Iraq are apparently entering the country virtually unhindered from Iran..........."]
So what else is new. The Iranian government has a long history of doing this...e.g, they used to send weapons etc. to the muslims and Mujhadeen fighters in Bosnia (over 10 years ago).
yes shred them, and then enslave them to tehran.
then, when its war time, it is these same people who will be on the frontline as fodder.
just like hitler did.
Given that we are talking about the Iranians (and presumably the Syrians as well), there is a real possibility (but by no means a probability) that they will not get the message, and will come back at us with a massive escalation of violence and political stunts (e.g. cutting off oil to nations which don't support them, sophisticated terror attacks against US interests), but if that happens, the mullahs will have kissed goodbye to their nuclear ambitions (the destruction of which we should leave to the Israelis), and will write their own epitaphs.
ping
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