Posted on 11/05/2005 9:00:15 PM PST by Wiz
WASHINGTON, Nov. 4 (UPI) -- At least 18 coalition soldiers have been killed in southeastern Iraq in the last two months, most by a deadly new kind of roadside bomb believed to be sourced from Iran, a top British general said Friday.
A year ago there were far more attacks on coalition forces but the casualties were low. That trend has been reversed, said Maj. Gen. Jim Dutton, who spoke with Pentagon reporters from his headquarters in Basra.
"Even at its worst, this is a relatively stable area in comparison to other parts of the country. We're concerned, as are our colleagues further north, about the IED threat," he said.
"The number of incidents is extremely low ... but the fatality rate is quite high, much higher than it was a year ago, because these breakaway Shia terrorist groups ... have found a piece of technology which is working particularly well at the moment," he said.
That technology is a new class of "improvised explosive device" that employs an explosively formed projectile which is deadly against armored vehicles. An EFP is essentially a copper disc that, when attached to explosives and detonated, melts and forms a perfectly aerodynamic slug that can penetrate armor. It is similar technology to that used by the Air Force in the Sensor-Fuzed Weapon to destroy enemy tanks.
The weapons have been traced back to Iran, according to Dutton and other military and Pentagon officials. The Iranian government has not been publicly linked to them. Military officials point to terrorist groups like Hezbollah as likely being involved in the trade.
"We've certainly seen movements of explosives across the (Iranian) border," said Dutton. "We're not, regrettably, capturing these arms as they come across the border. That's what we would like to do."
(Excerpt) Read more at upi.com ...
ping
BTTT
Bump - Thanks for the ping.
This sucks. Is there any kind of technical solution to this problem? I seem to remember the Red Army Faction in what was then West Germany using similar techniques on armoured cars.
Thank you all
If the weapons are made in Iran's factories, they are not "improvised" explosive devices, but rather regular military equipment.
I hope we learned in Vietnam not to allow external sources of supply to our enemies be unfettered. If you can't block them at the border, then you have to hit either the factories or lines of supply farther back from the frontier.
Ask the ghost of Curtis LeMay. The only solution is to bomb the factories, or interdict the supply routes. Either by putting a force astride them, or bombing it. Bombing it may or may not work, depending on the terrain, weather, etc.
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