Posted on 06/12/2005 4:35:20 PM PDT by CHARLITE
The car bombs killing troops and civilians in Iraq have grown more sophisticated as insurgents gain training and financing across the border in Syria, defense officials say.
The officials estimate that improvised explosive devices (IEDs), both roadside and car-borne, now account for 50 percent of all daily attacks, or "contacts," in Iraq.
When the IED attacks began in full force in late 2003, most bombs were made of artillery and mortar shells. But lately, the coalition is discovering more sophisticated bombs made of a mix of explosives, some of which include penetrating warheads to kill people inside buildings.
At the Pentagon, an Army-led task force is working to come up with ways to defeat the systems, but so far the insurgents are finding new technologies and tactics to stay one step ahead.
"There's not going to be a silver bullet," said one defense official assigned to the problem. "It's going to be a combination of technology, jammers and intelligence to find the bomb makers."
The suicide car bombings are considered the work of foreign jihadists, most of whom enter Iraq through Syria. "We believe all of them are foreigners, not Iraqis," a second defense official said.
The jihadists are recruited by al Qaeda in Iraq, led by Jordanian-born terror chief Abu Musab Zarqawi. They train in Syria and Iraq, then are assigned missions.
Zarqawi, the most-wanted man in Iraq with a $25 million reward on his head, has shifted car bomb attacks in recent months from targeting American troops to trying to kill Iraqi security forces and Iraqi civilians.
Officials said Zarqawi wants to inflict the maximum possible number of deaths and injuries. With American soldiers exercising better force protection, thanks to improved armor and training, the insurgents have shifted their attacks to more vulnerable Iraqi troops and civilians.
(Excerpt) Read more at insider.washingtontimes.com ...
"The enemy is very adaptive, very inventive and very smart," he said. "I can't comprehend of an enemy that believes suicide is a means of combat. But they do. They watch us and learn from us."
I've read and reread this sentence several times. What is Scarborough saying? What does he mean when he links their willingness to commit suicide, with "watching us and learning from us?" From my perspective, this is a misnomer. Surely our troops aren't committing suicide in Iraq. It's an odd clumsiness for an otherwise top notch writer.
Char :)
And on a thread yesterday I saw where five out of ten suicide bombers were found to have their hands chained to the steering wheel...the numbers could be higher, but because of the condition of the remains, it was difficult to tell...
I wonder who they learned that trick from?
Well one thing is for damn certain. The terrorists aren't going to be covered by the media if they are like building schools.
The terrorists know exactly what the President Bush bashing media want and they are more than thrilled to give it to them, It isn't a effective strategy on a military level. But with the sorry blame the USA media as their propaganda wing they can cause real problems.
One has to wonder if instead of the bombings the media would cover the schools being built, the businesses opening, the power plants being built if the killer Baathists and islamists wouldn't change their tactics.
Oh yeah that doesn't smear the President or the Military, does it....
The words are not Scarborough's but Bridges's (the guy he's quoting). Either Scarbo munged the sentence order or the guy speaking to him did. The sentence "They watch us..." follows on from, "The enemy is..." and the sentences in between, "I can't comprehend of [sic].." and "But they do," are a separate thought that he inserted in between as an aside.
Some reporters would have fixed the sentence order, and almost all would hae fixed the bad grammar, unless they are trying to make the interviewee sound like an idiot. I don't think that was intended, so I think that it was just a no-time-before-deadline thing.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
I can tell that the terrorists are one or more steps behind, at least within concepts to counter them. It just takes time to implement them and what is going on now. The terrorists are also unaware about the trap they would approach for their own counter measures.
Char :)
Maybe if the Iraqi Government closed the border between Syria and Iraq and tell the world no one is allowed to enter from that country then we could use drone bombs on any bus or truck crossing the borders. cut down on quite a bit of terrorists infiltration. Not as many coming through Saudi or Kuwait.
This article appears to be part of a building case to apply more pressure to, or invade, Syria.
"Maybe if the Iraqi Government closed the border between Syria and Iraq and tell the world no one is allowed to enter from that country then we could use drone bombs on any bus or truck crossing the borders. cut down on quite a bit of terrorists infiltration. Not as many coming through Saudi or Kuwait."
I have really never understood why we didn't cover Iraq's borders from the day that Saddam's statue came down. I'm just a civilian lady, but simple LOGIC would suggest that one of the first orders of business would be to at least secure the roads from Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia into Iraq. I've never understood why they've allowed this influx of killers for 2 years, before getting around to doing something about the problem.
Char
It is likely also a matter of resources. We do not have unlimited resources. It takes a lot of manpower and money to close the borders.
Char,..Think back. The French and the Russians forced the Turks to deny the 4th ID the right to go through Turkey during the opening stages of OIF. Had we been able to deploy the 4th ID in North Iraq, much of what has happened would have been stopped cold.
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