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Car Bomb Suicide Attacks Were Ordered by Al-Q
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An upsurge in car bomb attacks in Iraq was ordered by al Qaeda's leader in the country, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, at a meeting of insurgents in Syria [where they probably received free donuts from Assad], a senior U.S. military official said on Wednesday. The increasing use of car bombs, including one last week where the driver's foot was found taped to the accelerator, marks a tactical shift by an ever-adapting insurgency, he said. More than 400 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in car bombings and assassinations in the past three weeks. Zarqawi "wasn't happy with how the insurgency was going," the official told reporters, adding that the Jordanian militant had ordered more use of vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDs), the U.S. military acronym for car bombs. "Zarqawi directed that people start using more VBIEDs [probably has a better acryonym in arabic] and to use them more in everyday operations," he said. The meeting about a month ago was among up to five held by insurgents in foreign countries since the U.S. invasion in 2003, the official said. It was not clear if Zarqawi attended. There have been 126 car bombs in Baghdad [I think they mean the Baghdad region which includes many of the outlying villages 50 or so km from the city] since the end of February, including ones discovered before they could be detonated, the official said, adding there had been 21 so far this month. The number is well above that for all of 2004. Most of the car bomb attacks this year were suicide bombings. The official said the bombers included some foreign guerrillas but it was impossible to say how many. He said a dropoff in attacks this week [I think that means the week that began May 15] was the result of raids by U.S. and Iraqi security forces against insurgents. They included a U.S. Marine operation last week that U.S. officials said killed an estimated 125 insurgents near the Syrian border in western Iraq. Posted by: mhw 2005-05-18 |
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