Now blaming this to Iran....Officials see rising threat from lethal weapons linked to Iran
The Army is working to fill a shortfall in Iraq of thousands of advanced Humvee armor kits designed to reduce U.S. troop deaths from roadside bombs -- including a rising threat from particularly lethal weapons linked to Iran and known as "explosively formed penetrators" (EFP) -- that are now inflicting 70 percent of the American casualties in the country, according to U.S. military and civilian officials.
"In November, there was all of a sudden a ridiculous surge in EFP activity. People were getting killed left and right," said one military officer who served recently in Iraq. While other roadside bombs often cause no casualties, EFPs "make everyone nervous," he said. "It's a catastrophic weapon."
Senior U.S military officials in Baghdad held a briefing yesterday in which they presented evidence of apparent Iranian involvement in supplying EFP technology and components to fighters in Iraq.
The total number of roadside bombs laid in Iraq doubled in the past year, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified before Congress last week.
"You add that, then, to the new explosively formed projectiles, which are a much more deadly form that are coming into Iraq from Iran, and the combination has maintained the level of casualties," Pace said, despite advances in U.S. protective gear, tactics and targeting of bomb networks. Pace recently said two Iranians had been detained in raids on the networks.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17105332/