Barrel Bombs

waltky · Jun 7, 2014

Barrel bomb new weapon of choice for Mideast, African governments...

INCREASED USE OF BARREL BOMBS IN MIDEAST, AFRICA
Jun 7,`14 WASHINGTON (AP) -- Governments in the Mideast and Africa, in desperate efforts to gain battlefield ground, are using barrel bombs against their enemies, launching the cheap, quickly manufactured weapons as a crude counter to roadside blasts and suicide explosions that insurgents have deployed for years.

New evidence of their use in Iraq, after being dropped on civilians in Syria and Sudan, has raised concerns that governments in unstable nations will embrace them. Described as "flying IEDs," or improvised explosive devices, barrel bombs have the power to wipe out a row of buildings in a single blast. They can kill large numbers of people, including those not targeted. "It's fair to say that a lot of governments are losing control of the counterinsurgency," said Michael Knights, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "They're also watching what they see in Syria, and they feel like their air power is what is making the difference."

"Barrel bomb" is a broad term for a large container packed with fuel, chemicals or explosives and often scraps of metal that, in recent years, have most often been dropped on targets from helicopters or planes overhead. But they also have been found on Israeli beaches, where authorities believe they washed up after militants on the Gaza Strip released them. They are attractive to governments that have the aircraft to bombard targets from the sky but limited munitions or money to launch enough conventional weapons, such as missiles, to rival their enemies.

An anti-Bashar Assad activist group, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows Syrian citizens inspecting an unexploded barrel bomb filled with explosives, which was dropped from a Syrian forces helicopter on a street in Aleppo, Syria. The use of barrel bombs has spread this year from Syria to Iraq, raising concerns that desperate governments in a number of unstable nations from Europe to Africa to the Middle East will turn to weapons that the international community has condemned as a violation of human rights laws.

Sudan's army began dropping barrel bombs into rebel areas starting in late 2011, according to human rights watchdogs, as the south split off and created a new country. In December 2012, Susan Rice, then U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said she was "gravely concerned" about the reported attacks. In Syria, forces controlled by President Bashar Assad began in 2012 a barrel bomb campaign against areas controlled by rebels and insurgents, killing thousands in his effort to reclaim power in a civil war that has left more than 160,000 people dead.

As recently as Wednesday, the State Department reported evidence of barrel bomb strikes on three neighborhoods in the divided northern city of Aleppo. Last month, new evidence that Iraq's army dropped between four and 10 barrel bombs on insurgent strongholds in the country's Sunni-dominated Anbar province, which borders Syria, spurred U.S. officials to warn Baghdad to immediately desist or risk American support and aid.

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Csareo · Jun 7, 2014

Barrel bombs are a common weapon in most third world arsenals. Pretty make shift for weapons.

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Barrel Bombs

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