Very interesting story to say the least. I have never heard of the acronym ‘IRAM’ or of IRAMs being used in Iraq before. I am sure they have been used in the past there, but it has never been really reported on or known. Something to think about when patrolling and observing at your base, or on the road. And it sounds like this is the kind of munition that would need an open top truck bed(maybe with a tarp over it) to disguise it.
There are tons of bongo trucks all over Iraq, and it would be logical to me, to focus on trucks within the effective range of these type of crude devices. It sounds like the rocket motors they use to chuck these propane tanks filled with explosives, have to work pretty hard(the rocket motors are not that strong I guess). It sounds like the booger eaters were thinking 800 yards, but in reality, the thing could only launch 50-150 yards.
These things sound like the propane bombs used in Colombia by such groups like the FARC. The munitions were developed with the help of IRA advisors(although I am sure someone else came up with it before them).
Crude, to say the least, but if they hit, they can do some damage. The question is, will the IRAM be the new EFP? I don’t think so, because that damn EFP is pretty effective. The IRAM is just one more thing….. By the way, this story was sent to me by a reader, and thank you for sending it and thanks to Long War Journal for posting it. – Head Jundi
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The Long War Journal: Mahdi Army uses “flying IEDs” in Baghdad
Written by Bill Roggio on June 5, 2008 2:26 PM to The Long War Journal
Improvised rocket assisted mortar launchers and related information.
The explosions in the Sha’ab neighborhood in the Baghdad district of Adhamiyah, which killed 16 civilians and wounded 29 more, have been “misreported,” according to the US military. The explosions in the Mahdi Army stronghold were initially reported in the media as a car bomb attack that targeted a police commander. The attack was held up as the largest bombing in Baghdad since mid-March.
But the US military has refuted the reports, saying the explosions were caused by the premature detonation of a Special Groups improvised rocket launching system. The system, which has been described as a flying improvised explosive device, or airborne IED, had received little attention until yesterday’s explosions in Sha’ab.
“There has been a lot of misreporting on yesterday’s event in the Sha’ab neighborhood of Adhamiyah, a district in northeast Baghdad,” said Lieutenant Colonel Steven Stover, the chief Public Affairs Officer for Multinational Division Baghdad, in an e-mail to The Long War Journal. “What I find disconcerting is there have been few corrections. This was not an engagement and these were not Special Groups transporting missiles and mortars in a bongo truck.”