By JIM KRANE | Associated Press
November 9, 2005
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - U.S. and British troops are being killed in Iraq by increasingly sophisticated insurgent bombs, including a new type triggered when a vehicle crosses an infrared beam and is blasted by armor-piercing projectiles.

The technology, which emerged during guerrilla wars in Lebanon and Northern Ireland, has been used in recent roadside bombings that have killed dozens of Americans and at least eight British soldiers.

The alarming efficiency has led many British and a few U.S. officials to argue that rogue groups in Iran and perhaps Lebanon are giving expertise to Iraq's insurgents. But others caution against that idea, saying the technology is available to those who know where to look.

Either way, the Pentagon is scrambling to find countermeasures, says Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, a senior U.S. military officer in Iraq.

"We're studying very hard where this technology is coming from and what we can do to combat that technology," Lynch said in a briefing in Baghdad last week.

The deadly munitions mark a steady improvement in the roadside bombs that debuted in 2003 in Iraq, often as simple as a single artillery shell wrapped with detonator cord linked to a battery.

The new bombs are a deadly marriage of stealthy camouflage, shaped explosives that propel metal projectiles through four inches of armor and infrared motion-detector triggers that can't be blocked by electronic jammers.

"It works like a burglar alarm, a beam that goes across a doorway. Once the beam is broken it triggers the bomb," said Amyas Godfrey, a former British army intelligence officer who left Iraq in October 2004 after serving two tours.

British officials and, to a lesser extent, their American counterparts have suggested Iraqi insurgents are getting advice and perhaps components from Iran or Lebanon's Hezbollah militia.

In the 1990s, Hezbollah's Iranian-backed Shiite fighters used infrared-triggered penetrator bombs with great success against Israeli armored vehicles in southern Lebanon.

Similar bombs have killed eight British soldiers in southern Iraq since May, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair said the circumstances "lead us either to Iranian elements or to Hezbollah." He conceded he had no evidence, and both Iran and Hezbollah denied involvement.

Anthony Cordesman, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said Iraq's insurgents are more likely just tapping a pool of common bomb-making technology, none of which requires special expertise.

"There's no evidence that these are supplied by Iran," he said. "A lot of this is just technology that is leaked into an informal network. What works in one country gets known elsewhere."

Last month, the London-based Independent newspaper quoted a British intelligence official as saying the Irish Republican Army was first to use infrared triggers in bombs aimed at British troops 15 years ago.

The ballistics technology behind the bombs' shaped charges dates to World War II anti-tank munitions.

The insurgent variety uses a cone-shaped plastic explosive charge that concentrates its force on a steel or copper projectile. The projectile is fired at high velocity and stretched into a molten slug that can burn through four inches of armor, Cordesman said.

Infrared triggers are easily obtained, said Godfrey, the former British intelligence officer. He said they are identical to motion sensors used to open elevator doors or set off burglar alarms.

The new bombs also contain simple radio-controlled receivers that allow insurgents to arm them by radio or cell phone ahead of an approaching military convoy.

"Usually they'll place an array of explosives locked to a single infrared sensor," Cordesman said. "What you get is an array of shaped charges, so you're not going to get hit with just one."

He said the clustered projectiles are accurate _ and effective _ against armored Humvees and light armored vehicles at up to 50 feet. Heavily armored Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles are better able to withstand the blasts, although some have been destroyed.

Even if a blast doesn't penetrate a vehicle's armor, "the impact will blow off shards of armor inside the vehicle that are red hot and cut people to ribbons," said Bruce Jones, a London-based intelligence expert who advises NATO.

Perhaps most worrisome for the Pentagon is that infrared triggers cannot be blocked by electronic countermeasures, such as devices that emit a radio beam to jam signals from cell phones, garage-door openers and other remote-control devices used to detonate bombs.

"I don't know if you can disrupt an infrared beam without triggering the explosion," said Godfrey, now an analyst for the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies.

Researchers are studying whether expensive vision equipment might let soldiers see the beams. Others suggest developing explosive detectors to scan roadsides for bombs or an electromagnetic pulse weapon that could fry unshielded electronics within reach of a convoy.

As the Pentagon searches for a solution, Godfrey said U.S. and British forces are adjusting patrol routes and scanning maps for likely ambush points. Troops keep watch for bombs hidden in hollowed-out trees, the dirt or plastic foam painted to resemble concrete.

"We can get very excited about covering ourselves with technology. But at the end of the day, you have to think like an insurgent," Godfrey said.

It is so sad to see our troops getting killed.

. . . The projectile is fired at high velocity and stretched into a molten slug that can burn through four inches of armor . . .

. . ."Usually they'll place an array of explosives locked to a single infrared sensor," Cordesman said. "What you get is an array of shaped charges, so you're not going to get hit with just one." . . .

. . . He said the clustered projectiles are accurate _ and effective _ against armored Humvees and light armored vehicles at up to 50 feet. Heavily armored Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles are better able to withstand the blasts, although some have been destroyed. . . .

. . . Even if a blast doesn't penetrate a vehicle's armor, "the impact will blow off shards of armor inside the vehicle that are red hot and cut people to ribbons," said Bruce Jones, a London-based intelligence expert who advises NATO. . . .

bobd1953 wrote:
It is so sad to see our troops getting killed.


No doubt. I hope some people burn in hell for putting them in this situation. 4 inches of armor these things will blast through!

Waiting for Reno and Thorne to justify the situation with "we are creating a democracy".

Nah. Tired of arguing with people who support the terrorists that target civilians by making excuses for them.

Nah. Tired of arguing with people who support the terrorists that target civilians by making excuses for them.

You two are too easy to bait.

Nah. Tired of arguing with people who support the terrorists that target civilians by making excuses for them.

You two are too easy to bait.

You two are too easy to bait.

s---. You fecking meant it. Take your right-wing psuedo-patriotism that actually rejects the founding ideals of America and shove it up your fecking ass. It that clear enough for you?

Put your "fecking" money where your mouth is, and put on a uniform, and then get your ass over to Iraq and start shooting real bullets at real people. Then come back and spray your bullshit at everyone.

I predict that these people will end up wreaking much more havoc around the world than the remnants of the anti-Soviet MujahHadin (you know, Osama and pals).

You've been reading the Bible haven't you? :wink:

I've read the Bible cover to cover. And saw the movie.

I just skimmed the Cliff Notes.... Greatest book of all time, my ass...

Damn it, Reno. I'm calling you out on this one. How the hell does what we are doing in Iraq have anything to do with fighting a war against terrorism?

Hell, I can answer that. See, the Hussein and Bush families go back a long ways--but come 1991 or so there was a falling out. So, now they're kind of like the Hatfields & McCoys. These days they really don't like one another any more, and they have stopped exchanging Christmas cards and all that. GWB, the arrogant Bush with no good reason to be, decided that invading Iraq would be the best way to get back at that pesky Saddam for having the gall to keep all those nasty WMDs that Bush Sr. gave him a few years back.

So we blew the s--- out of Saddamville and much to our surprise, all the other goat f---' towel heads rallied to Saddam's side. In conclusion, because of this last little prank that GWB pulled on Saddam, we are now indeed fighting terrorists in Iraq. God Bless America.

Curt

is there anyone I forgot to offend?

Right up there with the time that danooguy said that I cheered the death of every American soldier.

Damn it, Reno. I'm calling you out on this one. How the hell does what we are doing in Iraq have anything to do with fighting a war against terrorism? And please, no more of your twisted psycho babble. How about a coherent answer for once.

The theory behind the intervention in Iraq was written a long time ago. I would think that you leftists that decried the paleocon and leftist dependence on Realpolitic would welcome a policy that was based on the idealistic notion that all peoples "including the brown ones" could participate in democracy and that women were really human beings and not chatell. That our security can only be secured when facistic, misogynous belief systems steeped in the hatred give way to the rule of law and democratic institutions.

But then maybe your partisainship, self hatred and antisemitisim prefers the wahabist approach to history.


Read some T. Barnett. Probably the real theoritician behind our involvement in Iraq, and as history will tell if the cowardice of the left doesn't prevent its conclusion the correct approach.



http://hnn.us/...ntfriendly/9212.html

Excuse me? What you said that I called you on, was that you equate paying taxes with serving your country in the armed forces. You said it and I nailed you to the wall for it...and rightly so.

That you could equate simply paying your taxes with giving your life for your country shows the kind of slime from which you were hatched, hugepedro.

And now you, of all people, would get indignant over what reno said?