I’ve been hearing a lot about the "war on terror" for some time now. It’s become and American phrase and you hear it everywhere. Our soldiers are fighting to keep people safe and coming up against its worst enemy, “the roadside bomber", whose mission is to destroy. There’s always something on TV or in the news about the suicide bomber or the roadside bomber, but I have to ask myself, “Who are these people so set on destruction and taking out human life without giving it a second thought.Sometimes the war going on in Iraq seems a zillion miles away or just something you watch on TV, but I have to remind myself from time to time, just how real this thing is. Somebody’s father, husband, brother or uncle is fighting this war and many are losing their lives so that I can continue to have the freedoms that I cherish and take for granted every day. Some one has lost a loved one to this cause and the war on terror is a never-ending battle. Just who is the roadside bomber and what does he want? I made it my business to find out.
It’s the roadside bombs, car bombs, and suicide bombers, not WMD’s (weapons of mass destruction), that are actually killing people in Iraq. One third of all the coalition troop fatalities in Iraq since the start of the war were caused by roadside bombs, and they’re presently causing half the deaths in that country.These weapons of limited destruction are combined under the acronym IED, for “improvised explosive device.” IED’s in turn lead to another Iraq War term, “hillbilly armor,” an improvised defensive device – bits of scrap metal and ballistic glass – used by soldiers to “uparmor” their trucks. Even real armor can’t stand up to roadside bombs.
Despite its popularity, you won’t find roadside bomb defined in any dictionary, because one seems to think the term is self-explanatory. But roadside bombs have become something special in Iraq. Unlike other explosives, the name roadside bomb has a catchy ring to it. It combines the peaceful image of the roadside rest with the element of surprise provided by the explosion that typically follows when a Humvee drives by.Roadside bombs have become the weapon of choice for Iraqi insurgents.
Despite the upcoming changes in Congress, our troops will be embedded in Iraq for the foreseeable future, and “roadside bomb” is assured not just a continuing place in the headlines, but also a permanent place in the dictionary.
Insurgent
(in·sur·gent)
1: a person who revolts against civil authority or an established government. especially: a rebel not recognized as a belligerent
2: one who acts contrary to the policies and decisions of one's own political party
Insurgency or Insurrection:
An armed uprising, or revolt against an established civil or political authority. Persons engaging in insurgency are called insurgents, and typically engage in regular or guerrilla combat against the armed forces of the established regime, or conduct sabotage and harassment in the land in order to undermine the government's position as leader.
Guerrilla Warfare:
The unconventional warfare and combat with which small group combatants use mobile tactics (ambushes, raids, etc.) to combat a larger, less mobile formal army.
Tactics and Strategies:
Raids are amongst the most common actions taken by insurgents. In addition, insurgents establish ties with other outlaws to further their goals. Some militants can also be sponsored by competing or enemy state governments. Some elements of an insurgency may use bombs, kidnappings, hostage-taking, hijackings, shootings and other terrorist techniques to target their enemy and other facilities, often with little regard for civilian casualties or collateral damage. Many times, insurgent groups conduct violent attacks but do not reveal the group's identity or leader.
Insurgents use a variety of warfare tactics. Their attacks against the authority may take the form of attacks on supply trains and security forces using hidden explosives. These explosive devices, at times made from military-grade materials, are concealed or camouflaged along transport routes and detonated when supply transports or security forces come within distance. Insurgents frequently launch ambushes on military targets, with automatic weapons.Insurgency:
Most commonly used to describe a movement's unlawfulness because they are not authorized by or in accordance with the law of the land. In cases of rebellions, the term insurgents refers to those who are not part of the decision-making entity that has the ability to make laws.
The term "Iraqi insurgency”, has been used by US military spokespersons and embraced by various politicians and the media to describe the guerilla resistance to the occupying US-led coalition forces and the new Iraqi Government in post-invasion Iraq, 2003-2007.
For example, Tomes, in a 2004 article, identifies four elements that "typically encompass an insurgency":
1. cell-networks that maintain secrecy
2. terror used to foster insecurity among the population and drive them to the movement for protection
3. multifaceted attempts to cultivate support in the general population, often by undermining the new regime
4. attacks against the government
The U.S. military in Iraq is increasingly concerned about roadside bombs that are taking a great toll on U.S. troops. Iraqi insurgents are assembling bigger bombs and finding better ways to hide them, often foiling American efforts to counter their effectiveness.
While U.S. military struggles hand-to-hand with the problems posed by insurgent technology and tactics, commanders in Iraq are relying on several different methods to try to reduce IED casualties.
One of the methods involves a massive, 21-metric-ton vehicle called a buffalo. Its thick armor and an attached nine-meter mechanical arm give the U.S. military the ability to do what it could not do before - locate and disrupt IEDs before they can cause harm.
What Is The Roadside Bomb? Why Is It So Effective? How Is It Constructed?
The Roadside Bomb
photo credit: souperd
Roadside Bomb:
The most prominent word to come out of the war in Iraq isn’t insurgent (an Iraqi who wants the Americans to go home), sectarian violence (translation: 'not civil war'), or Green Zone (a name which gives environmental protection a whole new meaning). It’s roadside bomb.
Googling “roadside bomb” nets 1.7 million hits.
Most IEDs are made of artillery or mortar shells, fitted with a remote detonator. A typical bomb is small enough that it can be hidden among ordinary roadside trash. IEDs have been found wrapped in burlap sacks, plastic bags, aluminum cans, pieces of clothing, and even inside dead animals.
Insurgents have become increasingly clever with their IEDs. Such bombs – buried in the asphalt, hidden inside the carcass of a dead animal or attached to a wire threaded through a stick of bamboo – are the biggest killers of American troops as insurgents use guerrilla tactics. The IEDs, designed to blend in with their surroundings, wreak terrible damage on passing US convoys. “It is really the only way they can inflict casualties on us in any large number. They can’t beat us . . . so they go for the big boom.”
Instead of targeting the Americans with bullets and grenades, Iraqi insurgents laid another surprise: A softly blinking blue cell phone hidden in a bush, wired and taped as a detonator, and linked to a long red detonation cord that disappeared into the cab of a burned-out oil tanker on the side of the road. Waiting to blow inside: three 130mm artillery shells, daisy-chained to explode simultaneously. The cell phone needed only a call to trigger the explosion.
Roadside bombs deserve special recognition this year because in a relatively short time they have carved out a deep niche – actually a scar – in our language. Roadside bombs explode regularly in the news as well as by the roadside. They make the headlines almost every day, and it wouldn’t surprise me if there’s a roadside bomb on today’s front page.
Roadside Bombs In The News 2008:
25, Jan 2008
- BAGHDAD -- An abandoned apartment building, believed to be used as a bomb-making factory, was blown apart as the Iraqi army was investigating tips about a weapons cache. At least 34 people were killed and 224 wounded when the blast tore through surrounding houses in the Zanjili neighborhood.
24 Jan 2008
- MOSUL - A suicide bomber in police uniform killed a top police official in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul as he toured the site of a blast a day earlier that killed 36 people and wounded 169, police said.
- MAHAWEEL - A roadside bomb targeting a police patrol killed one civilian and wounded two others in Mahaweel, 75 km (45 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.
- BAGHDAD - Two policemen were killed and three others wounded when a roadside bomb struck a police patrol near central Baghdad's Karrada district, police said.
20 Jan 2008
- BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb targeting a police patrol killed a civilian and wounded two policemen in Zayouna district in eastern Baghdad, police said.
- BAGHDAD - The U.S. military said the final death toll in multiple truck bombings targeting Iraq's minority Yazidi sect in northern Iraq last August was 796.
- FALLUJA - A suicide bomber killed six people in a town south of Falluja where people were celebrating the release of a man from U.S. military custody, local officials said.
- MOSUL - Police said they shot dead the driver of a car rigged with explosives during an attempted attack on a police checkpoint in eastern Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad. The car detonated, wounding two people.
- KABUL, Afghanistan - A roadside bomb probably intended for Afghan or NATO forces killed five civilians in southern Afghanistan.
17, Jan 2008
- Sri Lanka - A ROADSIDE bomb ripped through a Sri Lankan bus, killing 26 people and wounding dozens as a six-year ceasefire between the government and Tamil Tiger rebels officially expired.
08, Jan 2008
- KABUL, Afghanistan — A roadside bomb killed two soldiers from the U.S.-led coalition in eastern Afghanistan, and a homicide bomber on a motorcycle attacked a border police patrol in the south, killing a policeman.
- Beirut - A roadside bomb injured at least three UN peacekeeping soldiers on Tuesday, when it struck their patrol south of the Lebanese capital, Beirut.
News Article: September 30, 2007
IEDs have caused nearly two-thirds of the 3,100 American combat deaths in Iraq, and an even higher proportion of battle wounds. This year alone, through mid-July, they have also resulted in an estimated 11,000 Iraqi civilian casualties and more than 600 deaths among Iraqi security forces. To the extent that the United States is not winning militarily in Iraq, the roadside bomb, which as of Sept. 22 had killed or wounded 21,200 Americans, is both a proximate cause and a metaphor for the miscalculation and improvisation that have characterized the war.
Being a Christian, I can easily compare the roadside bomber to the enemy of my soul, “Satan”. Daily as I walk along the Christian road that leads to "Life", I find that the devil will stop at nothing to try to destroy me with his deadly traps. His mission is to steal, kill, and destroy and he is constantly setting a snare to take me by surprise with his roadside bombs. I would be fallen by now if it were not for Jesus. He is my soldier and there to protect me and defuse the bombs set by the enemy. Jesus has given me “Life” and he keeps me along the way that I might have it more abundantly. It comforts me to know when I lay my head down at night, that while Jesus is keeping me safe in my war with the devil, the soldiers in Iraq are keeping me safe from the war on terror. I am thankful to God every day that someone is fighting for me.
1 Peter 5:7-9
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:
Psalm 38:12They also that seek after my life lay snares for me: and they that seek my hurt speak mischievous things, and imagine deceits all the day long.
John 10:10The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
Jeremiah 5:26For among my people are found wicked men: they lay wait, as he that setteth snares; they set a trap, they catch men.
Jeremiah 9:5And they will deceive every one his neighbour, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies, and weary themselves to commit iniquity.
Revelation 20:10And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
