Iraq insurgents boost power of explosives

[leftchick]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200501/s1278827.htm

Insurgents in Iraq have been using more powerful makeshift bombs in the past two weeks, including a recent roadside attack that killed seven US troops in an armoured vehicle, a Pentagon military official has said.

"We've noticed in the recent couple of weeks that the IEDs (improvised explosive devices) are all being built more powerfully, with more explosive effort in a smaller number of IEDs," Army Brigadier General David Rodriguez told reporters at a Pentagon briefing on Iraq.

"That trend has occurred over the last two weeks," he added about the new tactic. "It is mainly in the Sunni triangle."

There are "a lower number of IEDs, but they have been more powerful," Brig Gen Rodriguez said, noting that a powerful explosion in north-west Baghdad on Thursday took the lives of seven American troops in an armoured Bradley fighting vehicle.

The general could offer no explanation for the new tactic, including whether or not the insurgents were using new experts to cobble together explosive shells and other devices.

... and no one asks just where the explosives came from.