Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Boston Globe
February 16, 2008
Pg. 1
Militants' tactics adapt as US defenses improve
By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON - Insurgents in Iraq, countering improved defenses against lethal roadside bombs, are converting private houses into large-scale, booby-trapped bombs set to detonate when American or Iraqi forces burst in on raids, according to US officials in Iraq and Washington.
Since late December, US forces in northern Iraq have found at least 42 so-called house-borne improvised explosive devices in their sector, many located in the middle of neighborhoods, the top US general in the area reported earlier this week. And more than a dozen were discovered in the past few weeks in Diyala Province, where coalition forces are conducting major combat operations against insurgents who have fled the heavier US military presence in Baghdad and elsewhere, they said.
Authorities said six US soldiers died recently when they stepped on a trip-wire placed under a carpet, triggering an explosion that destroyed much of the structure.
US military officials believe Sunni Muslim extremists and Shia militias are using house bombs more often because coalition forces have become better able to detect and defuse other IEDs, such as those hidden along roadways or buried in the ground. The growing use of the tactic, they say, reveals that, despite setbacks in recent months, insurgents are determined to in flict large-scale casualties on American and Iraqi troops.
"It is a very, very complex problem," said Lieutenant General Thomas F. Metz, director of the Pentagon's Joint IED Defeat Organization in Washington. "Man has been ambushing man for a long time."
In the new wave of bombings, insurgents have buried powerful explosives under floorboards and hidden them in jugs, engineering hair-trigger booby traps such as blasting caps strung with copper wire.
The bombs have proved "very, very lethal," said Rear Admiral Gregory Smith, a military spokesman in Baghdad.
But while the latest tactic is not entirely new - attacks have been reported in the past - the practice of booby-trapping houses and other buildings is beginning to have strategic influence, according to Metz.
Though most of the booby-trapped dwellings have been identified before detonation, including those defused by robotic surveillance systems, ground forces have turned to US air strikes to destroy them. Authorities say bombing the houses is safer than sending in troops to try and neutralize a building filled with sensitive detonators and high-powered explosives.
But the air strikes could have consequences that imperil long-term US objectives, officials acknowledge. Bombs and missiles can kill or maim bystanders and cause unintended damage that could engender the resentment of residents.
John A. Kringen, deputy director of the CIA, told a House panel on Wednesday that the house-borne IEDS are "quite dangerous to our deployed forces."
"As we go through and clear [a house] after an operation, more and more, we're seeing those now being booby-trapped," Kringen said, adding that the tactic is intended to "inhibit our ability to clear an area after an operation."
It is the latest round in what has been an epic struggle to overcome the insurgents' weapon of choice - the inexpensive, low-tech bomb - only to have the insurgents respond with new kinds of IEDs or triggering mechanisms to overcome coalition defenses.
US commanders estimate that coalition forces, with the help of local Iraqi citizens, now find and clear more than 50 percent of all IEDs - as opposed to less than 30 percent a year ago. They also report that insurgents now have to place an average of seven IEDs to wound or kill one soldier, a far larger ratio than in the recent past.
But despite the billions of dollars the Pentagon has invested in IED countermeasures since 2003 - including cutting-edge surveillance technologies and electronic jamming devices to thwart some of the more sophisticated bomb detonators - the insurgents' capacity to place different kinds of IEDs has grown over the past year, according to military officials.
Detailed figures remain classified, but the total number of IEDs in Iraq - those found and cleared, rendered ineffective, and the bombs that inflict casualties - is climbing again after a drop between April and November 2007, according to a Feb. 13 unclassified brief prepared by Metz's staff.
Improvised explosive devices of all kinds - on the ground, packed into vehicles, or hidden in buildings - remain the biggest killer of US troops in Iraq. Their use has also risen dramatically in Afghanistan, according to the brief, reaching unprecedented levels last spring and summer.
The changing enemy tactics are injecting added urgency into the Pentagon effort to neutralize the devices in Iraq and Afghanistan. Military researchers have developed new technologies, better training, and greater intelligence about the bomb-making and supply networks operating in both battle zones.
Metz said his office, which has a $4.3 billion budget, is also trying to predict the enemy's next move. He anticipates insurgents will create larger, deadlier, and more rudimentary bombs that would defeat high-tech US systems.
Smith, the spokesman in Baghdad, said recent interrogations of Shia extremists indicate that Iran has recently stepped up its training in the manufacture of powerful IEDs with so-called explosively-formed penetrators - large, molten-copper projectiles that can rip through heavily armored vehicles.
February 16, 2008
Pg. 1
Militants' tactics adapt as US defenses improve
By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON - Insurgents in Iraq, countering improved defenses against lethal roadside bombs, are converting private houses into large-scale, booby-trapped bombs set to detonate when American or Iraqi forces burst in on raids, according to US officials in Iraq and Washington.
Since late December, US forces in northern Iraq have found at least 42 so-called house-borne improvised explosive devices in their sector, many located in the middle of neighborhoods, the top US general in the area reported earlier this week. And more than a dozen were discovered in the past few weeks in Diyala Province, where coalition forces are conducting major combat operations against insurgents who have fled the heavier US military presence in Baghdad and elsewhere, they said.
Authorities said six US soldiers died recently when they stepped on a trip-wire placed under a carpet, triggering an explosion that destroyed much of the structure.
US military officials believe Sunni Muslim extremists and Shia militias are using house bombs more often because coalition forces have become better able to detect and defuse other IEDs, such as those hidden along roadways or buried in the ground. The growing use of the tactic, they say, reveals that, despite setbacks in recent months, insurgents are determined to in flict large-scale casualties on American and Iraqi troops.
"It is a very, very complex problem," said Lieutenant General Thomas F. Metz, director of the Pentagon's Joint IED Defeat Organization in Washington. "Man has been ambushing man for a long time."
In the new wave of bombings, insurgents have buried powerful explosives under floorboards and hidden them in jugs, engineering hair-trigger booby traps such as blasting caps strung with copper wire.
The bombs have proved "very, very lethal," said Rear Admiral Gregory Smith, a military spokesman in Baghdad.
But while the latest tactic is not entirely new - attacks have been reported in the past - the practice of booby-trapping houses and other buildings is beginning to have strategic influence, according to Metz.
Though most of the booby-trapped dwellings have been identified before detonation, including those defused by robotic surveillance systems, ground forces have turned to US air strikes to destroy them. Authorities say bombing the houses is safer than sending in troops to try and neutralize a building filled with sensitive detonators and high-powered explosives.
But the air strikes could have consequences that imperil long-term US objectives, officials acknowledge. Bombs and missiles can kill or maim bystanders and cause unintended damage that could engender the resentment of residents.
John A. Kringen, deputy director of the CIA, told a House panel on Wednesday that the house-borne IEDS are "quite dangerous to our deployed forces."
"As we go through and clear [a house] after an operation, more and more, we're seeing those now being booby-trapped," Kringen said, adding that the tactic is intended to "inhibit our ability to clear an area after an operation."
It is the latest round in what has been an epic struggle to overcome the insurgents' weapon of choice - the inexpensive, low-tech bomb - only to have the insurgents respond with new kinds of IEDs or triggering mechanisms to overcome coalition defenses.
US commanders estimate that coalition forces, with the help of local Iraqi citizens, now find and clear more than 50 percent of all IEDs - as opposed to less than 30 percent a year ago. They also report that insurgents now have to place an average of seven IEDs to wound or kill one soldier, a far larger ratio than in the recent past.
But despite the billions of dollars the Pentagon has invested in IED countermeasures since 2003 - including cutting-edge surveillance technologies and electronic jamming devices to thwart some of the more sophisticated bomb detonators - the insurgents' capacity to place different kinds of IEDs has grown over the past year, according to military officials.
Detailed figures remain classified, but the total number of IEDs in Iraq - those found and cleared, rendered ineffective, and the bombs that inflict casualties - is climbing again after a drop between April and November 2007, according to a Feb. 13 unclassified brief prepared by Metz's staff.
Improvised explosive devices of all kinds - on the ground, packed into vehicles, or hidden in buildings - remain the biggest killer of US troops in Iraq. Their use has also risen dramatically in Afghanistan, according to the brief, reaching unprecedented levels last spring and summer.
The changing enemy tactics are injecting added urgency into the Pentagon effort to neutralize the devices in Iraq and Afghanistan. Military researchers have developed new technologies, better training, and greater intelligence about the bomb-making and supply networks operating in both battle zones.
Metz said his office, which has a $4.3 billion budget, is also trying to predict the enemy's next move. He anticipates insurgents will create larger, deadlier, and more rudimentary bombs that would defeat high-tech US systems.
Smith, the spokesman in Baghdad, said recent interrogations of Shia extremists indicate that Iran has recently stepped up its training in the manufacture of powerful IEDs with so-called explosively-formed penetrators - large, molten-copper projectiles that can rip through heavily armored vehicles.