Car bomb
A car bomb is used to carry out a murder or terrorist attack using explosives deposited in a vehicle . It is used either as a murder instrument against an occupant of the vehicle or as a weapon to damage people or facilities in the vicinity of the exploding vehicle. Car bombs are also used by resistance groups in asymmetrical conflicts against regular military .
Terrorist weapon
When a car bomb is used as a terrorist weapon, the explosive is transported to the target in the vehicle and detonated there - immediately, but usually only at a later point in time. Occasionally the vehicles are steered by the driver into the target as part of a suicide bombing and exploded there by impact or by deliberate ignition. Car bombs are aimed at facilities and at people, and are often used to carry out terrorist attacks on civilians. They are also used by insurgents or guerrilla forces against regular or occupying armies, with the harm to civilians often being accepted or even intentional. While the presence of US troops in Iraq from 2003 were most of the deaths and injuries caused by so-called unconventional explosive devices ( Improvised Explosive Devices causing IEDs), often in the form of car bombs.
Because several 100 kg of explosives can be hidden in the trunk or hold of a car or delivery van , personal injury and property damage can be very large. 168 people died in the bomb attack on the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City . The assassin had loaded over two tons of explosives into a pickup truck, which he detonated in front of a public administration building. When the World Trade Center was bombed in 1993 , the assassins wanted to bring the building down with a car bomb in the underground car park, but they failed. The explosion tore a 30 meter hole in four of the six basement floors, killing six people.
Military categories in the US military
- Large Vehicle Borne improvised explosive device (LVBIED): Larger trucks and tractor-trailers are equipped with explosives, the scope allows several tons and be moved to the target point to cause damage upon detonation in a range of several hundred meters
- Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device (VBIED): A car or truck filled with explosives is driven to the target point and detonated .
- Under Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device (UVBIED): A self-made and rather small explosive device installed in, under or on a car or truck as an explosive device ( booby-trap ) that explodes when the vehicle is moved or started.
Often, car bombs are also equipped with filled liquefied gas containers in order to increase the effect.
Murder instrument
The clandestine dumping of a bomb in the victim's vehicle is a type of murder that is particularly widespread in the area of organized crime and secret services . The bomb is ignited, for example, by coupling it to the ignition of the car, opening or closing a door, a pressure sensor in the seat, from a certain speed, while getting out of the car or by remote control . In contrast to car bombs used for terrorist purposes, smaller amounts of explosives are used, because injuring or killing bystanders in the vicinity of the car is not the aim of the attack or could attract unwanted additional public attention.
- In 1963 Cesare Manzella , boss of the Cinisi Mafia family, was killed by a car bomb in the First Mafia War .
- In the " Massacre of Ciaculli " (1963) seven Italian Carabinieri were killed by a car bomb. The bomb was intended for Salvatore "Ciaschiteddu" Greco , but exploded when Carabinieri tried to examine the car. As a result, the Italian state was heavily criticized in public for its inaction.
- In 1972, three Carabinieri died in a bomb explosion in a parked car near Peteano. The left-wing terrorist Red Brigades were suspected for a long time until it emerged in 1984 that the bomb had been planted by the right-wing extremist Vincenzo Vinciguerra .
- In 1974 the Chilean secret police DINA, together with ex- CIA agent Michael Townley, murdered the Chilean general, former interior minister and commander-in-chief of the Chilean army, Carlos Prats, in exile in Buenos Aires by a car bomb.
- In 1976 the DINA murdered the former Chilean Foreign and Defense Minister Orlando Letelier in exile in Washington, DC by a bomb deposited in his car, which exploded shortly after the start of the journey. His American colleague Ronni Karpen Moffitt died with him, and her husband survived seriously injured.
- In 1983, the mafia murdered the Italian investigating judge and prosecutor Rocco Chinnici with a bomb in his car.
- In 2005 there was a series of attacks on anti-Syrian politicians and journalists in Lebanon , most of which were carried out with car bombs. The Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri was among those killed . The Syrian regime was named as the mastermind behind the attacks .
- In 2017, anti-corruption investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia died in a car bomb explosion in Malta .
See also
- Booby trap , unconventional explosive device and incendiary device
- Pipe bomb
- Suicide bomber , backpack bomber
- Dismantling
- Defuser (USBV)
- List of explosive attacks
literature
- Mike Davis : A History of the Car Bomb . Association A, Berlin 2007, ISBN 3-935936-58-3
Web links
- The little man's weapon ( Memento from March 13, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Netzeitung.de , August 10, 2006
- A brilliant idea . SZ-Magazin , May 24, 2007
- Death on wheels . Spiegel Online , July 12, 2007
- Drone footage of several car bombs in Mosul, Iraq on YouTube
Individual evidence
- ↑ Leoluca Orlando : I should be next. 2002, ISBN 3-451-27985-1 .