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Authors: Jack Coughlin
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thousands of pounds of ammonium nitrate. Foreign volunteers, whom al-Qaida cell leaders leg-cuffed in place should they have any second thoughts about martyrdom, drove the trucks into Iraqi Police checkpoints or Coalition combat outposts. The massive blasts from these deadly weapons took down buildings and left the streets heaped with burned debris and human remains. Through some freak of physics, the drivers were usually blown straight up into the air. Their bodies would come apart, but the head was almost always found intact. During the cleanup after these attacks, it fell to American and Iraqi troops to locate the driverâs head, photograph it, and conduct a retinal scan to identify the terrorist if his eyes remained in their sockets.
Each bomb factory had specific tells picked up by U.S. military forensics experts. Some set up fail-safes, or âchicken switches,â so that if the driver tried to opt out at the last minute, the vehicle could be detonated remotely by observers watching from a safe distance. Others tore down vehicles to their bare frames, welded modifications and explosives in place, then rebuilt the rig so it looked like any other on the streets. Some of these were so cunningly constructed that even a detailed search by Iraqi security forces missed the threat concealed within them. Al-Qaidaâs factories grew so sophisticated that they were able to produce tractor-trailer rigs loaded with six to eight thousand pounds of explosives. Such infernal devices took down entire city blocks when they went off.
Sometimes the bomb makers improvised even deadlier ways to attack the Coalition. On August 21, 2006, al-Qaida operatives drove a dump truck filled with fuel up to a Coalition outpost on the edge of town and successfully detonated it. The blast drenched the base in flaming fuel, killing three Iraqi police officers and horribly burning eight American soldiers.
The truck and car bomb menace grew so severe that summer that three or four bombs a week were blowing up in and around the city. Finding the factories became a key priority, as these attacks almost always inflicted military and civilian casualties. But finding them required venturing into the heart of the city, where al-Qaidaâs legions had seeded the streets and alleys with thousands of IEDs. In some places, so many had been emplaced that they resembled urban minefields, and some of the bombs were so powerful they could (and did) destroy M1 Abrams tanks and M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles.
When the troops tried to move off the streets and into businesses and homes, they faced another threatâbuilding contained IEDs. Al-Qaida would wire a dwelling with propane tanks, explosives, or artillery rounds left over from the Saddam era. Once a door was opened and a wire or infrared beam was broken, the entire building would explode and come down around the patrol. Dozens of these BCIEDs detonated around the city that summer, leaving entire blocks in ruins.
Piles of concrete and rebar heaped on either side of garbage-strewn roads littered with the burned-out carcasses of cars and tireless, bullet-riddled trucks became the indelible image of Ramadi for countless American soldiers who struggled to defeat al-Qaida. Water mains were ruptured by IEDs and flooded the streets. Sewage lines, never Iraqâs strong point, clogged up or broke and added a foul stench to the ruins. Severed power lines hung limply across sidewalks, festooned trees and walls, and lay in tangles in the streets. Animals caught in cross fires lay rotting in the rubble, as nobody was willing to risk removing them since al-Qaida had been known to plant bombs around or inside their corpses. On one wall deep in the city, the enemy had spray-painted in Arabic âThis is the graveyard of Americans.â
It was a graveyard. The soccer stadium, controlled that summer by al-Qaida, became a dumping ground for corpses. The enemy dug up the field and turned it into a mass grave.
Each bomb factory had specific tells picked up by U.S. military forensics experts. Some set up fail-safes, or âchicken switches,â so that if the driver tried to opt out at the last minute, the vehicle could be detonated remotely by observers watching from a safe distance. Others tore down vehicles to their bare frames, welded modifications and explosives in place, then rebuilt the rig so it looked like any other on the streets. Some of these were so cunningly constructed that even a detailed search by Iraqi security forces missed the threat concealed within them. Al-Qaidaâs factories grew so sophisticated that they were able to produce tractor-trailer rigs loaded with six to eight thousand pounds of explosives. Such infernal devices took down entire city blocks when they went off.
Sometimes the bomb makers improvised even deadlier ways to attack the Coalition. On August 21, 2006, al-Qaida operatives drove a dump truck filled with fuel up to a Coalition outpost on the edge of town and successfully detonated it. The blast drenched the base in flaming fuel, killing three Iraqi police officers and horribly burning eight American soldiers.
The truck and car bomb menace grew so severe that summer that three or four bombs a week were blowing up in and around the city. Finding the factories became a key priority, as these attacks almost always inflicted military and civilian casualties. But finding them required venturing into the heart of the city, where al-Qaidaâs legions had seeded the streets and alleys with thousands of IEDs. In some places, so many had been emplaced that they resembled urban minefields, and some of the bombs were so powerful they could (and did) destroy M1 Abrams tanks and M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles.
When the troops tried to move off the streets and into businesses and homes, they faced another threatâbuilding contained IEDs. Al-Qaida would wire a dwelling with propane tanks, explosives, or artillery rounds left over from the Saddam era. Once a door was opened and a wire or infrared beam was broken, the entire building would explode and come down around the patrol. Dozens of these BCIEDs detonated around the city that summer, leaving entire blocks in ruins.
Piles of concrete and rebar heaped on either side of garbage-strewn roads littered with the burned-out carcasses of cars and tireless, bullet-riddled trucks became the indelible image of Ramadi for countless American soldiers who struggled to defeat al-Qaida. Water mains were ruptured by IEDs and flooded the streets. Sewage lines, never Iraqâs strong point, clogged up or broke and added a foul stench to the ruins. Severed power lines hung limply across sidewalks, festooned trees and walls, and lay in tangles in the streets. Animals caught in cross fires lay rotting in the rubble, as nobody was willing to risk removing them since al-Qaida had been known to plant bombs around or inside their corpses. On one wall deep in the city, the enemy had spray-painted in Arabic âThis is the graveyard of Americans.â
It was a graveyard. The soccer stadium, controlled that summer by al-Qaida, became a dumping ground for corpses. The enemy dug up the field and turned it into a mass grave.
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