Explosives before NYT article were in the news.. look at this

[juliagoolia]

http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/news/world/9849036.htm


SNIP

One recent Saturday night, a Marine Mobile Strike Team discovered an IED made of 15 130 mm artillery shells daisy-chained by the side of Highway 8, officials said.

Later that night, a six-vehicle convoy was returning from a mission in central Latifiyah when an IED exploded under one of the armored Humvees. The bomb disintegrated the Humvee's front end. Its transmission and engine parts rained down on the vehicles behind it, and the grenade launcher mounted on its roof was found in a field 30 feet away, according to a witness.

Officials blamed insurgents who they described as Baath Party loyalists and an assortment of common criminals.

All five passengers survived, saved by the Humvee's armor. With two weeks in Iraq, three members from the 2nd Battalion, 24th Marines have been recommended for Purple Hearts.

Sgt. Eliasard Alcauter, a vehicle commander, was in the back seat.

"I saw a bright flash but didn't even hear the bang," said Alcauter, who suffered a mild back sprain. "Next thing I know, it was like I was riding a rodeo horse. The vehicle was bouncing up and down. It was crazy."

The insurgents probably are using weapons and ammunition looted from the nearby Qa-Qaa complex, a 3-mile by 3-mile weapons-storage facility about 25 miles southwest of Baghdad, said Maj. Brian Neil, operations officer for the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, which initially patrolled the area.

The facility was bombed during last year's invasion and then left unguarded, Neil said. "There's definitely no shortage of weapons around here," he said.

The task to secure Latifiyah had belonged to the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marines, which went after insurgents with large offensives and tactical cordon-and-search missions. Earlier this month that responsibility was handed to the 2nd Battalion, 24th Marines, a unit with headquarters in Chicago comprising mainly reservists from Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa (slogan: "Mayhem from the Heartland").

The battalion of Chicago police officers, Milwaukee students, mortgage brokers, defense lawyers, sales representatives, nurses and engineers - totaling more than 1,000 -