WASHINGTON - Insurgents are using more powerful, armor penetrating bombs in attacks like those this week that killed 21 US marines in western Iraq, a top general said on Wednesday. âWe are seeing larger amounts of explosives,â said Brigadier General Carter Ham of the US Joint Staff. âWe are seeing different techniques that are being used in an effort to counter the efforts of coalition and Iraqi security forces to protect folks while they are moving -- different types of penetrators, different techniques of triggering the events.â
âI mean, again, this is a very brutal, lethal and adaptive enemy,â he said.
| And not all of them are stupid. |
Ham said an attack on Wednesday that killed 14 marines and interpreter was in the same area as an ambush on Monday that claimed the lives of six Marine snipers. He said the marines were in an amphibious assault vehicle, an armored vehicle that carries less armor protection than a tank, when it was struck by a roadside explosion in the town of Haditha. |