Explosive belt
Under explosive belt (or explosives vest ) are usually explosive charges understood that attaches to a belt or support frame similar and often of suicide bomber be used. In addition to explosives, other small metal objects such as nails, screws, bolts and the like are mostly used to create a splinter effect and thus increase the number of victims. Criminals often wear these bombs concealed under their clothing so that they can approach the target largely unnoticed.
history
Early uses of explosive vests are known in the battles of Shanghai (1937) and Tai'erzhuang (1938), when Chinese soldiers carried multiple stick grenades and other explosives and blew themselves up near Japanese tanks.
Another use is documented for the South African police special unit C1 , which was responsible for numerous human rights violations during the apartheid period . In the 1970s and 1980s, for example, black resisters who did not allow themselves to be “turned around” for the purposes of the white government were often murdered through such belts on the unit's premises in Vlakplaas . Some of the corpses were repeatedly blown up to facilitate their removal.
Explosive belts as a terrorist weapon for suicide bombers were developed on a larger scale by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) during the civil war in Sri Lanka . It was first used in 1991 by an LTTE suicide bomber against former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi . Other groups like Hamas also use explosive belts in their suicide bombings. From around 1993 onwards, Hamas carried out a series of attacks on civilian targets in Israel .
For the first time in Europe, explosive belts were used in the terrorist attacks of November 13, 2015 in Paris .
It is easy to identify the assassin, as their heads are severed by the explosion.
Combat
Suspected perpetrators are asked - if possible - at least 15 m away from other people to bare their upper body in order to be able to see whether the person is wearing an explosive belt. This approach is difficult with female suspects. Alternatively, infrared detectors can be used.
literature
- René Niklaus: Suicide attacks: The fusion of destruction and self-destruction: interpretative mapping of a terrorist attack form and its multiple meanings , LIT Verlag Münster, 2018, ISBN 978-3-643-13918-4 .
- Thorsten Gerald Schneiders: Today I blow myself up : Suicide attacks in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: a scientific contribution to the question of why , LIT Verlag Münster, 2006, ISBN 978-3-8258-8763-6 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Truth and Reconciliation - The Voice of 'Prime Evil' - BBC News
- ↑ TAMING THE TAMIL TIGERS
- ^ Joby Warrick , The Triple Agent , New York: Doubleday, 2011. p. 151
