Iraqi Insurgents Using Dirty Bombs on Civilians

FranchiseBlade · Feb 21, 2007

This is horrible news.

Iraqi Insurgents Using Dirty Bombs on Civilians

By DAMIEN CAVE and AHMAD FADAM
Published: February 21, 2007
BAGHDAD, Feb. 21 — For the third time in a month, insurgents deployed a new and deadly tactic against Iraqi civilians today: A dirty bomb combining explosives with poisonous chlorine gas.

A pickup truck carrying canisters of the gas, which burns the skin and can be fatal after only a few concentrated breaths, exploded near a diesel-fuel station in southwestern Baghdad, killing at least 5 people and sending another 75 to hospitals, wheezing and coughing, for treatment, Interior Ministry and medical officials said.

On Tuesday, a tanker truck filled with chlorine exploded north of Baghdad, killing 9 people and wounding 148, including 42 women and 52 children.

At least one other attack with chlorine occurred on Jan. 28 in the Sunni-dominated province of Anbar, according to American military statements. Sixteen people died after a dump truck with explosives and a chlorine tank blew up in Ramadi.

The attacks had the potential to be much deadlier, but seem to have been poorly executed, burning much of the chemical agent rather than spreading it. Still, Iraqi and American officials condemned the attacks as an effort to bring a new level of fear and havoc to Iraq as a new security plan for Baghdad takes shape.

Brig. Qasim Atta, an Iraqi government spokesman for the new Baghdad security plan, described chlorine vehicle bombs as a “filthy way” to attack vulnerable Iraqis, especially children.

Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a spokesman for the American military, said that the chemical attacks reflected the adaptability of the various militant groups, who often seize on one another’s fresh tactics, copying the attacks that get the most attention and cause the most death and destruction.

“It’s no surprise that anti-Iraqi forces or terrorists or whoever is doing this are trying to replicate this kind of attack,” he said. “They perceive that it’s working.”

The geography of the attacks on Tuesday and today — all in the outer ring of neighborhoods around the capital — suggested that the new Baghdad security plan may be pushing violence out to areas outside Baghdad’s central neighborhoods.

Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, the chief American military spokesman in the capital, said that military officials have found that as killings and bombings have decreased in Baghdad proper in recent weeks, the fringe areas have seen an increase. Top commanders were considering moving at least one brigade to Diyala Province north of Baghdad, the site of vicious battles between Sunni insurgents and American and Iraqi troops.

More examples were seen today of the shifting, fluid nature here of the fighting here.

General Caldwell said that an Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter made a “hard landing” north of Baghdad today. All nine people aboard were evacuated safely, he said; the cause of the crash was still being investigated.

But witnesses in Al Dehr, a town in Diyala Province about 20 miles north of Baghdad, said that the helicopter was shot down around 1 p.m. by heavy machine-gun fire, and crashed violently in flames.

If their account is accurate, the helicopter would be the eighth one successfully shot out of the air in Iraq since Jan. 20, and the first to be shot down since American commanders said that they had altered flight patterns and schedules to thwart what they called a heightened focus on aircraft by insurgents.

Witnesses said that three helicopters, including a double-rotor CH-47D Chinook, were flying at treetop level when gunmen on the ground began firing antiaircraft machine guns from an area near an oil pipeline. A resident who gave his name only as Ali said the back of one helicopter burst into flame, and the aircraft turned sideways and plunged to the ground. Two other witnesses said they too saw fire coming from the helicopter as it crashed.

The Mujahideen Army, a Sunni insurgency group active in the area, immediately claimed credit for downing the helicopter, according to the SITE Institute, which tracks Internet postings by insurgent groups.

Violence also broke out in the Shiite holy city of Najaf in southern Iraq, where a suicide car bomber detonated his payload at a checkpoint in the center of the city as Iraqi security forces checked it for weapons. The explosion occurred about one-half mile from the Imam Ali mosque, one of Shiite Islam’s holiest shrines. At least 11 people were killed, the police said, and another 34 were wounded.

The American military also said today that a soldier was killed by gunfire on Tuesday in a northern neighborhood of Baghdad, and that a marine died from combat on Tuesday in Anbar Province, where American troops have been battling Sunni insurgents for months.

Qais Mizher contributed reporting from Baghdad
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/21/world/middleeast/21cnd-baghdad.html?hp
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Sishir Chang · Feb 21, 2007

Saw another article about insurgents using chlorine gas today so this looks like a spreading tactic.

Rocket River · Feb 22, 2007

I was talking about this with a coworker
because of technological advances and general knowledge

WARS ARE DIRTIER than ever before
The ideal of a Get in . . beat them down and leave type of war
is IMO just no longer viable

I mean . . . I am proud and Amazed sometimes
about how few MAJOR-terrorist type things DON't happened here
[esp by the native population - i.e. Oklahoma city

You could wage war with the crap under your kitchen sink

Rocket River
this maybe the future for warfare

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