Iraq: New IEDs

Militants Turn To Small Bombs In Iraq Attacks, (New York Times)…Katherine Zoepf and Mudhafer al-Husaini, Nov 14, 2008 pg1.

…And as security in Baghdad has improved, the small and furtive bomb — though less lethal than entire cars or even thick suicide belts packed with explosive — is fast becoming the device of choice for a range of insurgent groups. They are also contributing, in the midst of an uptick in violence, to a growing feeling of unease in the capital.

Light, portable and easy to lay, sticky bombs are tucked quickly under the bumper of a car or into a chink in a blast wall. Since they are detonated remotely, they rarely harm the person who lays them. And as security in Baghdad has improved, the small and furtive bomb — though less lethal than entire cars or even thick suicide belts packed with explosive — is fast becoming the device of choice for a range of insurgent groups.

 “You take a bit of C4 or some other type of compound,” said Lt. Col. Steven Stover, a spokesman for the United States military in Baghdad. “You can go into a hardware store, take the explosive and combine it with an accelerant, put some glass or marble or bits of metal in front of it and you’ve basically got a homemade Claymore,” a common antipersonnel mine.