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Rumsfeld: Roadside bombs 'unambiguously from Iran'

SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Thursday, August 11, 2005

U.S. officials said Iran has allowed the smuggling of sophisticated improvised explosive devices to Sunni insurgents in Iraq. The officials said the bombs and components have been shipped via the northern and southern borders with Iraq.

"It is true that weapons clearly, unambiguously from Iran have been found in Iraq," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Tuesday. "It's a big border and unhelpful for Iranians to be allowing weapons those of types to be crossing the border."

Rumsfeld confirmed assertions by military commanders and other officials that at least two shipments of advanced IEDs arrived in Iraq from Iran, Middle East Newsline reported. They said these IEDs were used in a series of attacks by Sunni insurgents against U.S. armored forces in the Sunni Triangle in July.

Officials said the shaped-charge roadside bomb contained a projectile designed to penetrate the belly of the armored vehicle. They said the U.S. Army has also found an Iranian-origin IED meant to direct the blast up into the targeted vehicle.

The Iranian IEDs were said to have been designed or produced with assistance from the Beirut-based Hizbullah, sponsored by Teheran. But officials said the bomb that destroyed a U.S. Marine Corps 27-ton amphibious assault carrier in Haditha on Aug. 3 was not a shaped charge IED. Fourteen U.S. soldiers were killed in the blast, which officials said stemmed from a huge bomb.

Officials said the appearance of shaped charges represented a serious threat to the military in Iraq. They said the shaped charge, which until July 2005 was not employed by Iraqi insurgents, could penetrate the most heavily-protected of U.S. armored vehicles.

"Iraqi border guards have seized several shipments of shaped charges and components from Iran," the official said. "The assessment is that the shipments were being arranged by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps."

The last shipment from Iran, the official said, was on July 20. He said the delivery contained four bombs and resembled those used by Hizbullah in southern Lebanon in the 1990s.

Iran was also said to have been helping Sunni insurgents manufacture shaped charges in Iraq. Officials said at least one insurgency cell in Baghdad has been attempting to manufacture these bombs.

"Clearly, improvised explosive devices, vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices, some with newer technologies these days, are going to change our tactics, techniques and procedures and some of the technology that we'll bring to the fight," Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said. "Obviously we're going to try to do that."


Copyright © 2005 East West Services, Inc.

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