Magnetized Devices Cling to Undersides of Vehicles
By Ernesto Londoño
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, October 9, 2008
BAGHDAD, Oct. 8 -- Iraqi insurgents are increasingly using magnetically attached bombs known as "sticky IEDs" to assassinate mid- and low-level Iraqi officials, Iraqi and U.S. officials said.
Rigged with magnets so they will adhere to the undersides of automobiles and detonated by remote control or with timers, the bombs have been used in Iraq sporadically since 2004. This year, U.S. military officials said, they have investigated roughly 200 cases involving magnetic bombs, and Iraqi officials said they have noted an increase in assassination attempts in which attackers use guns equipped with silencers.
The magnetic bombs "are very dangerous and very difficult to discover," said Brig. Gen. Ali Abdul Ameer, a police commander in Baghdad. "It's stuck on in one place, and it blows up in another place."
These assassination attempts mark a shift from mass-casualty attacks that triggered a backlash against insurgent groups and militias, U.S. military officials said, and come as the Iraqi government is asserting more control over security matters in the country and as the United States starts to reduce troop levels.
The bombs have been used against Iraqi government officials, particularly those who work in the army and police. Local leaders, judges, journalists and members of U.S.-backed Sunni armed groups have also been attacked.
U.S. and Iraqi officials did not release comparative data on the use of magnetic bombs in recent years. But Iraqi officials say the increased use of the weapons led them this year to warn all government employees to inspect their vehicles each morning and to avoid leaving cars unattended in unsecured areas.
Even when they are not responding to emergencies, Iraqi army and police officials drive through Baghdad with sirens blaring to avoid getting stuck in traffic, which is when the bombs are sometimes affixed.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq "and other terrorist groups attempt to spread fear and intimidation among the public by use of these brutal tactics and try to create the perception that the Iraqi government is incapable of protecting local citizens," said a senior U.S. military intelligence official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
Although U.S. military officials said magnetic bombs have not been placed under their vehicles, many American officials have begun to inspect their cars, even inside the heavily protected Green Zone.
Maj. Gen. Abdul Karim Khalaf, a spokesman for the Ministry of Interior, said "most of the attacks are against MOI officials, because this ministry started to become professional and we are targeting all kinds of outlaws." He said insurgents occasionally use glue to stick bombs to vehicles.
Khalaf said police recently detained 12 people suspected of carrying out assassinations using guns fitted with silencers, and have launched operations to target networks that use such weapons. "In the last three weeks, there's been a huge amount of activity with these kinds of operations," he said.
Before heading to work Tuesday morning, Ali Jabar Aduan got down on one knee to check the chassis of his car for explosives. Later that day, a sticky IED -- or improvised explosive device -- turned the government-owned Kia sport sedan he drives into a ball of charred metal.
Aduan, 30, a driver employed by the Defense Ministry , said he drove cautiously through Baghdad's chaotic, traffic-choked streets Tuesday morning, looking right and left out of fear that someone might slip a magnetic bomb under his car.
He said he pulled into a parking lot at a residential complex across the street from the Foreign Ministry about 11 a.m. and ran into a friend near the parking lot. The two chatted for a few minutes on the sidewalk. The Foreign Ministry is adjacent to the heavily guarded Green Zone.
A tan-colored armored Iraqi army truck was parked in the same lot, a few feet from Aduan's car.
As Aduan prepared to cross the street, he heard a thundering blast and saw a cloud of smoke billow from the army truck.
Saif Mohammed Jasim, 17, who lives in the complex, was sitting on a cooler a few feet from the site of the blast, waiting for a friend.
"I heard an explosion, and I ran to see what was going on," the teenager said. A small piece of shrapnel had burned a quarter-size hole through his gray shorts, leaving a small burn mark near his groin.
About five minutes later, a second, more powerful blast overturned and set aflame Aduan's sedan, startling the crowd that had gathered near the burning armored truck. Aduan, a father of two, stared in disbelief at the burning vehicle.
Iraqi and U.S. soldiers cordoned off the parking lot and spoke to witnesses. American soldiers questioned Aduan, initially suspecting he may have been a culprit, but did not detain him because they determined that the bomb had been attached to the bottom of the vehicle, he said.
A senior Iraqi police official at the scene who declined to be named said the explosives were attached to magnets. Second Lt. Brandon Hardin said U.S. Army explosives experts were still trying to determine whether the devices were indeed magnetic bombs.
As the American soldiers left the parking lot, Aduan spoke hurriedly on his cellphone, holding the car's mangled, charred license plate. He looked pale and spoke in mumbles.
"I'm not very optimistic for my situation," he said. "But I'm still alive."
Special correspondent Qais Mizher contributed to this report.
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