伊拉克武裝份子使用罕有武器襲擊

罕有使用飛行炸彈襲擊伊拉克新目標
Rarely used flying bomb strikes new targets in Iraq
By Hannah Allam, McClatchy Newspapers Hannah Allam, Mcclatchy Newspapers –
Fri Jan 15, 3:47 pm ET

BAGHDAD — U.S. troops stationed at an outpost in southern Iraq heard a chilling whistle, and then a 60-pound airborne bomb punched through a concrete blast wall and sent shrapnel flying, wounding three Americans.
巴格達-美軍駐紮在在伊拉克南部前哨，聽見一令人不寒而栗的哨子聲，然後一個60磅重的空投炸彈，衝破一混凝土防爆牆和碎片橫飛，炸傷3名美國人。Explosions are commonplace in Iraq , but this was no ordinary attack. The U.S. military said Friday that militants who launched the Jan. 12 attack on a joint U.S.-Iraqi compound used an unusual weapon called an IRAM, for Improvised Rocket-Assisted Munition. Sometimes called "flying IEDs," IRAMs are a potentially deadlier incarnation of the garden-variety Improvised Explosive Devices in Iraq and Afghanistan — they're short-range projectiles that catapult toward unsuspecting targets.
爆炸在伊拉克是司空見慣的，但這不是普通的攻擊。美國軍方週五稱，武裝分子在1月12日對美伊聯合複式物發動的襲擊，使用了不尋常的武器稱為IRAM，即臨時火箭輔助軍火，有時被稱為“飛行爆炸裝置(IED)，”IRAM在伊拉克和阿富汗是一種有潛質而更致命的普通品種臨時爆炸裝置的化身，它們是短程射彈對毫無戒備的目標發射。
Two IRAMs flew into the outpost in the city of Amarah in a puzzling reappearance of a weapon that's been used only 14 times since the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, according to the U.S. military. Most of the earlier attacks occurred in eastern Baghdad more than 18 months ago, at the height of violence related to Shiite Muslim militias. The more recent attacks, however, were launched in southern Iraq's Maysan Province , which borders Iran .

In the most recent incident, only one of the IRAMs exploded, leaving a 12-foot crater in the ground, said Maj. Myles Caggins , a spokesman for the 4th Brigade of the Army's 1st Armored Division , which is based in Fort Bliss, Texas , and is operating in Maysan.

The other was a dud that's now being investigated by American and Iraqi forensics teams to determine its components and origins. Previous IRAMs have been linked to the Mahdi Army of volatile Shiite cleric Moqtada al Sadr and other Iranian-backed militias in Iraq .

"Violent Shiite extremist groups typically receive influence from Iranian origins," Caggins said, noting that so far there's no direct evidence that ties the latest attack to Iran . "The Iraqi police we advise are aggressively seeking to root out these networks of terrorists, smugglers and financiers who import and assemble these weapons."

(BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM)

In June 2008 , the Long War Journal , an online publication about counterterrorism issues, reported that what most media had referred to as a car bomb that killed at least 16 people and wounded 29 in eastern Baghdad that month was actually a premature detonation of an IRAM. The report said the IRAMs were "of Iranian manufacture" and were propelled by 107mm rocket charges.

The Washington Post reported in July 2008 on a flurry of rocket-propelled bomb attacks on U.S. installations in eastern Baghdad , also quoting military sources who said that Iranian-backed militias were responsible for the weapons. One system that failed to ignite included nine IRAMs, each packed with 200 pounds of explosives, the Post reported.

Details about the latest attack are classified pending a U.S. military investigation, and there's still little awareness of IRAMs, even among U.S. soldiers.

"I'd never heard of it — not before it blew up on us," said Spc. Robert B. Walsh , 27, of Venice, Fla. , who survived an IRAM blast last summer at the same place as the latest attack.

The military awarded Purple Hearts to Walsh and two other wounded soldiers from the Army's Charlie Company , 4th Battalion , 6th Infantry Regiment . Theirs was the last confirmed IRAM incident in Maysan — and possibly in Iraq — before the ones this week.

Walsh, who's still in Iraq , said he was on duty in a guard tower on the American side of the joint outpost at 6 a.m. last June 30 , which was supposed to have been a day of celebration as the new U.S.-Iraqi security pact took effect.

"I guess they wanted the last little hurrah," Walsh said.

Four men in two trucks pulled into a gas station next to the base. As passengers in the first truck filled their tank, the other men parked the second truck and jumped into the first vehicle. They drove away, Walsh said, leaving behind the second truck loaded with as many as three IRAMs set to a timer.

Walsh said his only clue before the blast was "a poof sound." In the seconds before impact, Walsh used his radio to alert other soldiers to possible incoming fire.

The IRAM zipped over the wall "like a big bottle rocket," Walsh said. It passed his guard tower and blew up next to a kitchen and barracks where American troops were sleeping.

The other two Purple Heart recipients received shrapnel wounds when windows and doors blew into their quarters, cutting their faces and hands. Several vehicles were damaged or destroyed, and the force of the explosion cracked the foundation and shifted the roof of the concrete building.

"It threw me about three or four feet and knocked me unconscious," Walsh said. "When I woke up, everything was on fire and there was debris all over the ground. It left a hole with a 15-foot radius, and it was 4 { feet deep."

Still, Walsh considers himself fortunate. There were at least two others IRAMs in the truck, he said, but the blast from the first one knocked others off their railing and burned out the ignition wire.

"Only one of them had gone airborne," Walsh said. "We were lucky, I guess, if you look at it that way."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20100115/wl_mcclatchy/3401457

用以殺死敘利亞人的奇特武器