Car bomb
A car bomb, bus bomb, van bomb, lorry bomb, or truck bomb, also known as a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device, is an improvised explosive device designed to be detonated in an automobile or other vehicles.
Car bombs can be roughly divided into two main categories: those used primarily to kill the occupants of the vehicle and those used as a means to kill, injure or damage people and buildings outside the vehicle. The latter type may be parked, or the vehicle might be used to deliver the bomb.
It is commonly used as a weapon of terrorism or guerrilla warfare to kill people near the blast site or to damage buildings or other property. Car bombs act as their own delivery mechanisms and can carry a relatively large amount of explosives without attracting suspicion. In larger vehicles and trucks, weights of around or more have been used, for example, in the Oklahoma City bombing. Car bombs are activated in a variety of ways, including opening the vehicle's doors, starting the engine, remote detonation, depressing the accelerator or brake pedals, or simply lighting a fuse or setting a timing device. The gasoline in the vehicle's fuel tank may make the explosion of the bomb more powerful by dispersing and igniting the fuel.
History
Car bombs have been used for attacks motivated by a wide variety of grievances and ideologies, by people and groups from a wide variety of cultural and religious backgrounds: nationalist, republican, left wing, right wing, Jewish, Christian, Shia, Sunni, and others.Car bombs are preceded by the 16th century hellburners, explosive-laden ships which were used to deadly effect by the besieged Dutch forces in Antwerp against the besieging Spanish. Though using a less refined technology, the basic principle of the hellburner is similar to that of the car bomb.
The first car bomb may have been the one used for the assassination attempt on Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II in 1905 in Istanbul by Armenian separatists in the command of Papken Siuni belonging to the Armenian Revolutionary Federation.
Car bombs were also preceded by animal bombs using horses and cows, then eventually emerging into car use.
Prior to the 20th century, bombs planted in horse carts had been used in assassination plots, notably the unsuccessful "machine infernale" attempt to kill Napoleon on 24 December 1800.
Mario Buda's improvised wagon used in the 1920 Wall Street bombing is considered a prototype of the car bomb.
The first reported car bombing was the Bath School bombings in Michigan, USA in 1927. Multiple separate explosions on the same day killed 45 people, including the bomber, and half of a school was destroyed.
The bombings were all carried out by Andrew Kehoe, motivated by a personal grievance.
His death was possibly an intentional suicide, but the cause of the explosion was a gun shot that might not have been intended to set off the load. The explosion itself did not seem to form part of a suicide attack on a specific planned target other than possibly himself and his truck.
The explosives in his truck detonated when he saw two men nearby had a gun, after he set off multiple other bombs.
The explosion may have been set off indirectly by him firing his own gun at the men.
Most of the deaths were caused by the earlier bombs.
Some groups in Palestine have used both cars and donkeys.
The Irgun, a Zionist militant group in British controlled Palestine, abused donkeys as suicide bombers in two attacks on Haifa vegetable market in 1939. They used unwitting donkeys loaded with explosives to attack the market, one attack killed 78 people, the other killed 21 people and wounded 24.
The previous year the Irgun attacked the market with a car bomb, killing 35 Arab civilians and wounding 70. There are no clearly documented cases of the Irgun using car bombs in suicide attacks, but the Irgun and their extremist Lehi splinter group used suicide in other circumstances and are seen as the key developers of car bombs, that were later used by other groups in numerous suicide attacks.
The Irgun were extremely influential.
While not an adaptation of a people-carrying vehicle, the WW2 German Goliath remote control mine shares many parallels with a vehicle-based IED. It approached a target at speed before exploding, destroying itself and the target. It was armoured so that it could not be destroyed en route. However, it was not driven by a person, instead operated by remote control from a safe distance.
The first non-suicide car bombing "fully conceptualized as a weapon of urban warfare" came on 12 January 1947 when the Lehi, a Zionist paramilitary organization, bombed the Haifa police station.
On 4 January 1948, a Lehi car bomb in Jaffa killed 70 Palestinian Arabs.
Car bombing was a significant part of the Provisional Irish Republican Army campaign during The Troubles in Northern Ireland. Dáithí Ó Conaill is credited with introducing the car bomb to Northern Ireland. Car bombs were also used by Ulster loyalist groups.
PIRA Chief of Staff Seán Mac Stíofáin defines the car bomb as both a tactical and a strategic guerrilla warfare weapon. Strategically, it disrupts the ability of the enemy government to administer the country, and hits simultaneously at the core of its economic structure by means of massive destruction. From a tactical point of view, it ties down a large number of security forces and troops around the main urban areas of the region in conflict.
A notable suicide car bombing was the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing, when two simultaneous attacks killed 241 U.S. and 58 French peacekeepers. The perpetrator of these attacks has never been positively confirmed. In the Lebanese Civil War, an estimated 3,641 car bombs were detonated.
The tactic was adopted by Palestinian militant groups such as the Qassam Brigades, Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. especially during the Second Intifada.
Mass-casualty suicide car bombings are predominantly associated with the Middle East, particularly in recent decades.
In the autumn of 2005, there were 140 car bombings happening per month.
As a delivery system
Car bombs are effective weapons as they are an easy way to transport a large number of explosives to a target. A car bomb also produces copious shrapnel, or flying debris, and secondary damage to bystanders and buildings. In recent years, car bombs have become widely used by suicide bombers.Countermeasures
Defending against a car bomb involves keeping vehicles at a distance from vulnerable targets by using roadblocks and checkpoints, Jersey barriers, concrete blocks or bollards, metal barriers, or by hardening buildings to withstand explosions. The entrance to Downing Street in London has been closed since 1991 in reaction to the Provisional Irish Republican Army campaign, preventing the public from approaching Number 10. Where major public roads pass near buildings, road closures may be the only option. Historically these tactics have encouraged potential bombers to target "soft" or unprotected targets, such as markets.Suicide usage
In the Iraqi and Syrian Civil War, the car bomb concept was modified so that it could be driven and detonated by a driver but armoured to withstand incoming fire. The vehicle would be driven to its target area, in a similar fashion to a kamikaze plane of WW2. These were known by the acronym SVBIED or VBIEDs. Ordinary civilian cars were outfitted with armour plating intended to protect the VBIED as it approached its target. Such SVBIEDs were driven into enemy troop areas or incoming enemy columns. Most often, the SVBIEDs were used by ISIL against Government forces, but also used by Syrian rebels against government troops.The vehicles have become more sophisticated, with armour plating on the vehicle, protected vision slits, armour plating over the wheels so they would withstand being shot at and occasionally additional metal grating over the front of the vehicle designed to crush or destroy incoming shaped charges such as those used on rocket propelled grenades.
File:USMC-100727-M-6126D-003.jpg|thumb|upright|A mock explosion of a pickup truck converted to SVBIED, used by U.S. marines for OPFOR purposes at Camp Pendleton.
Trucks were sometimes used to start an assault, and benefitted from their greater storage space that could contain very heavy explosives. Animal drawn carts, typically pulled by horse or mule, have also been used. Tactically, a single vehicle may be used, or an initial "breakthrough" vehicle, then followed by another vehicle.
While many car bombs are disguised as ordinary vehicles, some that are used against military forces have improvised vehicle armour attached to prevent the driver from being shot when attacking a fortified outpost.
Operation
Car bombs and detonators function in a diverse manner of ways and there are numerous variables in the operation and placement of the bomb within the vehicle. Earlier and less advanced car bombs were often wired to the car's ignition system, but this practice is now considered more laborious and less effective than other more recent methods, as it requires a greater amount of work for a system that can often be quite easily defused. While it is more common nowadays for car bombs to be fixed magnetically to the underside of the car, underneath the passenger or driver's seat, or inside of the mudguard, detonators triggered by the opening of the vehicle door or by pressure applied to the brakes or accelerating pedals are also used.Bombs operating by the former method of fixation to the underside of the car more often than not make use of a device called a tilt fuse. A small tube made of glass or plastic, the tilt fuse is similar in operation to a mercury switch or medical tablet tube. One end of the fuse will be filled with mercury, while the other open end is wired with the ends of an open circuit to an electrical firing system. When the tilt fuse moves or is jerked, the supply of mercury will flow to the top of the tube and close the circuit. Thus, as the vehicle goes through the regular bumping and dipping that comes with driving over a terrain, the circuit is completed, and the explosive is detonated.
Car bombs are effective as booby traps because they also leave very little evidence. When an explosion happens, it is difficult for forensics to find any evidence because things either denigrate or become charred.
As a safety mechanism to protect the bomber, the placer of the bomb may rig a timing device incorporated with the circuit to activate the circuit only after a certain time period, therefore ensuring the bomber will not accidentally activate the bomb before they are able to get clear of the blast radius.