Deadliest insurgent bomb made in Iran, U.S. says
Pastor Dale Morgan
Saturday, February 10, 2007
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Deadliest insurgent bomb made in Iran, U.S. says*
The 'explosively formed penetrator' eludes electronic countermeasures.
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
The New York Times
WASHINGTON The most lethal weapon directed against U.S. troops in
Baghdad is an explosive-packed cylinder that U.S. intelligence asserts
is being supplied by Iran.
That assertion reflects a broad agreement among U.S. intelligence
agencies, although officials say the picture is not entirely complete.
In interviews, civilian and military officials provided details to
support what until now has been a more generally worded claim in a
National Intelligence Estimate that Iran is providing "lethal support"
to Shiite militants.
The main concern is the "explosively formed penetrator," a particularly
deadly type of roadside bomb. Such attacks have doubled in the past
year, causing casualties far higher than other roadside bombs.
In the last three months of 2006, attacks using the weapons accounted
for a significant portion of Americans killed and wounded in Iraq,
though far less than half of the total, according to military officials.
It has become particularly serious threat in Baghdad.
Any assertion of an Iranian contribution to attacks on Americans in Iraq
is both politically and diplomatically volatile. The officials said they
were willing to discuss the issue to respond to what they described as
an increasingly worrisome threat, and were not trying to lay the basis
for a U.S. attack on Iran. Administration officials said they recognized
that previous intelligence failures could make critics skeptical about
the U.S. claims.
The link to Iran is based on analysis of captured devices, examination
of attack debris and intelligence on the training of Shiite militants by
the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and by Hezbollah militants believed to
be working at the behest of Tehran.
Information expected to be made public this weekend includes
interrogation reports from a Jan. 11 raid in northern Iraq and an
earlier raid in Baghdad indicating that money and weapons components are
being driven across the Iranian border at night.
The manufacture of the key metal components requires sophisticated
machinery, raw material and expertise that U.S. intelligence agencies do
not believe can be found in Iraq. In addition, some bomb components have
been found with Iranian factory markings from 2006.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates appeared to allude to this
intelligence when he told reporters in Seville, Spain, on Friday that
serial numbers and other markings on weapon fragments found in Iraq
point to Iran as a source.