Doorbells, Pagers Among Tools Used By Bombers in Iraq

FALLUJAH, Iraq -- Staff Sgt. Jeremy Anderson knows the doorbell only rings once.

The doorbell mechanism was connected by wire to a blasting cap and a small battery. The blasting cap was embedded in PE-4 plastic explosive, a substance with the consistency of Silly Putty, that was stuffed into a big artillery shell. Somewhere not far away was a wireless remote-control device that would activate the doorbell, completing a circuit and sending a charge from the battery to the blasting cap, igniting the PE-4. There would be no ding-dong, only a thunderous explosion sending chunks and shards of metal for hundreds of yards around.

The discovery was not out of the ordinary for Anderson, leader of a squad of roadside bomb hunters.

"You see the bomb and you see the doorbell. Right away, you've got to find the detonation point, but there's no wire leading anywhere," Anderson said. "You want to catch that guy with his finger on the button. The problem is, you're looking for him, but is he watching you?"

Anderson leads the 1st Squad, 1st Platoon, C Company of the 307th Engineers Battalion. Since arriving here last summer, they have done little in the way of construction. Mostly they clear obstacles, blast, batter and break down doors on raids and, perhaps most crucially for the functioning of occupation troops, uncover roadside bombs. "We are the main countermeasure," Anderson said.

Along with car bombs, the signature weapon of the Iraqi insurgency has been what the military calls an improvised explosive device, or IED. Car bombs have largely taken the lives of Iraqi civilians. IEDs have killed and wounded large numbers of U.S. troops. Hardly a day goes by in Iraq when a roadside bomb isn't discovered. Few days pass without one exploding, damaging convoys that are the Army's lifeblood. During the last week of January, eight American soldiers were killed in four bombings in the Sunni Triangle area west of Baghdad.

"IEDs are hard on morale," said Capt. Miguel Torres, commander of the 760th Ordnance Company's explosive ordnance disposal unit, the outfit that's called in once squads such as Anderson's have spotted a bomb.

"No one can think that just because they are mostly sitting at a desk looking into a computer that they can't get hit," Torres said. "Even a clerk who has to go out somewhere to get some paper is vulnerable. No one can say, 'Hey, I'm okay, it's the infantry that has to worry.' IEDs strike fear in everyone."

Torres' unit gets rid of bombs, usually by blowing them up. "That thing of cutting the blue wire then cutting the red wire, that's out of the movies," Torres said.

At least 382 IEDs have detonated at or near convoys in Iraq, Torres said. The count is undoubtedly low because it only includes cases in which disposal units were called in, Torres said. Sometimes, a military convoy that spots a bomb will just move on because soldiers fear an ambush or are in a hurry and don't bother to call in the disposal unit. More than 2,500 roadside bombs have been discovered, according to the military.

American forces did not foresee extensive use of roadside bombs when they invaded Iraq, soldiers and officers say. In Afghanistan, Bosnia and Kosovo, U.S. troops rarely encountered them. "We were briefed on booby traps, like it was Vietnam. IEDs were hardly mentioned," Torres said.

Units like Anderson's run interference for troops on roads around Fallujah, arguably the roadside-bomb capital of the country. Yet his unit received no special training to identify and clear IEDs before coming to Iraq. "We were never trained for this. We clear mines and booby traps," Anderson said. "There's no manual for IEDs."

Finding the lethal devices can be hit or miss. On a recent Saturday, members of the 2nd Squad accompanied a unit sent to blow up a building from which snipers had fired on troops. Spec. David Lane, from Dexter, N.Y., was probing a roadside when the group came under fire. An infantryman to Lane's left crouched to return fire. Lane noticed something yellow nearby. Then he saw an antenna coming out of a cement block.

"Buddy," he said, "you might want to clear out of here. We've got a live one here."

Both moved away. At 10 yards, "where I knew it wouldn't kill me," Lane radioed to a commander, who called in a disposal team to blow up the bomb.

Anderson was slated for a mission later that evening that would take him down the same road. "There are times we walk right over them, and then two or three hours later they blow up vehicles," he said. Whoever is detonating them appears to be waiting for bigger prey. "Seems they're mostly looking for something larger than individuals."

It was near the site of a roadside bombing that killed two American soldiers in a convoy on Jan. 24.

Almost all of the roadside bombs combine PE-4 and some sort of artillery munitions, from small mortar rounds to powerful 155mm shells. On occasion, the 155mm rounds are strung together like Christmas tree lights, an arrangement that soldiers call convoy killers. The record, Torres said, was 22 strung along a highway at intervals of about 10 yards. They did not go off.

Doorbells are only one of many devices used to trigger the bombs. The insurgents rig remote-control car alarms, garage door openers, pagers and specially prepared cordless phones. Solar panels are the latest innovation. When a soldier sweeps dirt off the panel, sunlight hits it, generating an electric current that is sent to the blasting cap. "It is not rocket science, but they're not stupid, either," Anderson said.

Sometimes IEDs are buried in potholes and culverts. Scouts have found them packed in dead animals, tires, garbage bags, fire extinguishers and barrels. One 155mm shell was found encased in a muffler. The muffler might have been designed to be attached to a car, creating a vehicular IED.

Piles of junk, commonplace on Iraqi roadsides, are also favorite spots to hide explosives. Tin cans and other metallic trash confuse metal detectors.

Such measures make identifying bombs difficult. Members of Anderson's squad line up in pairs on opposite sides of roads in advance of convoys. Infantry troops fan out to their left and right, watching for snipers and wires leading from the road. The soldiers are on alert for loose dirt, signs of digging and unusual bumps in or near the road.

Anderson's soldiers reconnoiter key roads repeatedly, which gives them one small advantage: They get to know the litter. "If a dead goat got up and moved from one day to another, we get suspicious," Anderson said.

When they find an explosive device, they back off until they can determine what is called the "initiation" point. They expect, and hope, that their electronic scrambling equipment will disable the signal from any remote-control device.

It's all been an eye-opener for the young enlisted troops in 1st Squad. "It's pretty scary when you see one," said Spec. Shane Thomson, from Walton, N.Y., a veteran of the war in Afghanistan. "Afghanistan was not a vehicle war. You fly in, walk, and fly out. I never even heard of an IED until I got to Iraq."

Pfc. Shaun Cowan, from Ballinger, Tex., said the difficulty of distinguishing friend from foe in Iraq added to the case of nerves. "It's bad when everyone gathers around to watch. You don't know who is who," he said.

"It scares the crap out of me every time. When we start, I think, 'God, here we go again.' Whenever I approach one, the family flashes in front of my eyes," said Anderson, a father of three from Brainerd, Minn.

The bombers occasionally set traps for the engineers themselves. Once, Anderson discovered mortar shells under a rock meant to explode when someone tripped over a string that would then detonate four artillery shells stuffed with PE-4. The battery from a motorcycle was hidden in a plastic water bottle.

After the bomb is dealt with, the next step is to try to find the bomber. Anderson's team has found only one, a 12-year-old boy with his finger on a detonator. Any accomplices had either escaped or were not even at the site when the bomb was discovered.

Anderson and Torres, who is based at the 82nd Airborne Division headquarters at Ramadi, 30 miles west of Fallujah, said the bombers work in teams. One member spies on the Americans' movements, another digs a hole to bury the explosives, if that is the plan. Another brings the bomb and yet another sets the detonation equipment.

Torres' unit uses squat, tracked vehicular robots to disarm bombs. They are mounted with television cameras and an arm to grab the detonation devices. Operators wear full-body Kevlar protective gear, a heavy helmet with visor and a bib lined with shrapnel-resistant panels.

On occasion, the bombers attach notes to their hidden explosives. Sometimes, they are simply instructions on how to rig them. One note, Torres recalled, contained a warning: "Your life ends with my fire."

Torres, who is from Puerto Rico, said he dreads the day when mobile phone networks are set up in Iraq. They will increase the range of detonation -- phone to phone -- and make it possible for spies to report the movement of U.S. convoys quickly and over a long distance.

Recently, soldiers raided a house in downtown Ramadi that Torres described as an IED showroom. The house was filled with blasting caps, electronic receivers and plastic explosives. Several fully rigged bombs were buried in the yard. He displayed a commercial remote-control door chime found there, the kind one might find in any Wal-Mart. The label said: "Easy to Use."

Staff writer Lois Raimondo contributed to this report.

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