NYT: Insurgents Using Bigger, More Lethal Bombs, U.S. Officers Say

[DeepModem Mom]

Insurgents Using Bigger, More Lethal Bombs, U.S. Officers Say
By DAVID S. CLOUD
Published: August 4, 2005


The explosion that killed 14 marines in Haditha yesterday was powerful enough to flip the 25-ton amphibious assault vehicle they were riding in, in keeping with an increasingly deadly trend, American military officers say.

In recent months the roadside bombs favored by insurgents in Iraq have grown significantly in size and sophistication, the officers say, adding to their deadliness and defeating efforts to increase troops' safety by adding armor to vehicles.

The new problems facing the military were displayed more than a week earlier, on July 23, when a huge bomb buried on a road southwest of Baghdad Airport detonated an hour before dark underneath a Humvee carrying four American soldiers.

The explosive device was constructed from a bomb weighing 500 pounds or more that was meant to be dropped from an aircraft, according to military explosives experts, and was probably Russian in origin.

The blast left a crater 6 feet deep and nearly 17 feet wide. All that remained of the armored vehicle afterward was the twisted wreckage of the front end, a photograph taken by American officers at the scene showed. The four soldiers were killed....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/04/international/middleeast/04bomb.html?hp&ex=1123128000&en=622405e9df0c1d45&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[Mountainman]

1. I guess that's why Cheney says they are in there last throws. They want

to go out with a big bang.

[JohnyCanuck]

2. Just another sign of the insurgents' increasing desperation. n/t

[daleo]

3. They are getting more skillful.

It is a predictable feature of opposition to occupation. The occupation has probably lost what little legitimacy it ever had in the eyes of most Iraqis, so the resistance is getting more help from the population. The U.S. military must also be getting demoralized, being picked off in a hopeless and futile cause - one based on a lie.

[teryang]

4. The pan Islamic nature of the conflict is completely lost on neo-

-con dumb asses. The strength, flexibility, and developement of the resistance indicates that they are receiving significant financial and material support from abroad. The notion that a western power could invade the heart of Islamic culture and simply take over was insane. Much of the support comes from our so called allies Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. They are accelerating the terminal decline of American imperial pretensions. They probably can't believe how terminally stupid our regime is. We are suffering a death by a thousand cuts.

[suegeo]

5. The punishment for stacking rocks, is DEATH

From the same article:

A few blocks away, American snipers were watching an Iraqi man who was stacking rocks along a street that the bomb disposal unit would drive down as it was leaving the neighborhood, according to the report. They suspected that he was building a hiding place for a bomb.

"Snipers engaged and killed the individual, who appeared to be emplacing an I.E.D.," the report says.

[Tesha]

6. They're probably finding more and more unexploded ordnance...

With all the munitions we've used against Iraq, they're probably
now finding more and more unexploded ordnance to exploit in the
construction of IEDs.

And wasn't there that little matter of a few lost tons of RDX a
while ago? Who needs ANFO when you've got top-notch military-
grade explosives at your disposal?

Tesha

[classysassy]

7. What is an insurgant?

if people would look up the definition they would stop using that bogus word.LOOK IT UP ITS IN THE BOOK.(DICTIONARY)

[4dsc]

8. and your point??

insurgent

adj : in opposition to a civil authority or government n 1: a person who takes part in an armed rebellion against the constituted authority (especially in the hope of improving conditions) 2: a member of an irregular armed force that fights a stronger force by sabotage and harassment

[Doctor_J]

9. sniff

what's that smell?