A pamphlet handed out by the Iraqi authorities warning the public of the danger of so-called sticky bombs.
November 14, 2008
Militants Turn to Small Bombs in Iraq Attacks
By KATHERINE ZOEPF and MUDHAFER AL-HUSAINI
BAGHDAD — They are usually no bigger than a man’s fist and attached to a magnet or a strip of gummy adhesive — thus the name “obwah lasica” in Arabic, or “sticky bomb.”
Light, portable and easy to lay, sticky bombs are tucked quickly under the bumper of a car or into a chink in a blast wall. Since they are detonated remotely, they rarely harm the person who lays them. And as security in Baghdad has improved, the small and furtive bomb — though less lethal than entire cars or even thick suicide belts packed with explosive — is fast becoming the device of choice for a range of insurgent groups.
They are also contributing, in the midst of an uptick in violence, to a growing feeling of unease in the capital.
“You take a bit of C4 or some other type of compound,” said Lt. Col. Steven Stover, a spokesman for the United States military in Baghdad. “You can go into a hardware store, take the explosive and combine it with an accelerant, put some glass or marble or bits of metal in front of it and you’ve basically got a homemade Claymore,” a common antipersonnel mine.
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