Car bomb

Car bomb in Iraq, made from a number of concealed artillery shells in the back of a pickup truck.

A car bombing in Iraq, 2005, in which a second car bomb was detonated while Coalition Forces were investigating the scene of an earlier car bombing, resulting in 18 deaths.

A car bomb is an improvised explosive device that is placed in a car or other vehicle and then exploded. It is commonly used as a weapon of assassination, terrorism, or guerrilla warfare, to kill the occupant(s) of the vehicle and people near the blast site and/or to cause damage to buildings or other property. Car bombs act as their own delivery mechanisms and can carry a relatively large amount of explosive without attracting suspicion. Trucks are most commonly used, although motorcycles and even bicycles have also been used to carry bombs.

The U.S. military and law enforcement agencies often call a car bomb a VBIED, an acronym standing for Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device.

Timothy McVeigh infamously bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City with a Ryder truck filled with ammonia nitrate/fuel oil explosive in the Oklahoma City bombing.

The earliest car bombs were intended for assassination. These were often wired to the car's ignition system, to explode when the car was started. Ignition triggering is now rare, as it is easy to detect and hard to install — interfering with the circuitry is time-consuming and car alarms can be triggered by drains on the car's electrical system. Also, the target can start the car remotely (inadvertently or otherwise), or the target may be a passenger who is a safe distance away when the ignition starts. It is now more common for assassination bombs to be affixed to the underside of the car and then detonated remotely, by the car's motion, or by other means. The bomb is exploded as the target approaches or starts the vehicle or, more commonly, after the vehicle begins to move, when the target is more likely to be inside. For this reason, guards often check the underside of vehicles with a long mirror mounted on a pole.

BATF summary table illustrating the size and range of effectiveness of car bombs by vehicle type used

In recent years, car bombs have become widely used by suicide bombers who seek to ram the car into a building and simultaneously detonate it. Truck bombs are also popular, since trucks can crash through barriers more easily and can hold a great deal more explosives.

Defending against a car bomb involves keeping vehicles at a distance from vulnerable targets, often using Jersey barriers, concrete blocks or bollards, and hardening buildings to withstand an explosion. During the height of the PIRA campaign, the entrance to Downing Street was closed, preventing the general public from getting near Number 10. This can be difficult where public roads pass near buildings, and road closures may be the only option in such circumstances (hence, for instance, in Washington, D.C. Pennsylvania Avenue is closed to traffic immediately behind the White House).

Car bombs have been used by terrorist groups for many years. For instance the IRA used them frequently during its campaign in The Troubles in Northern Ireland and Great Britain. IRA car bombs frequently caused major civilian casualties, for example on Bloody Friday in 1972. The IRA used mercury tilt switches in the majority of their car bombs. Mass casualty car bombing, and especially suicide car bombing, is principally a Middle Eastern phenomenon. The tactic was first widely used in the Lebanese Civil War by the Islamic fundamentalist group Hezbollah (most notably in the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing which killed 241 U.S. marines and 58 French), by Palestinian terrorist groups against Israeli civilians, and was also adopted by the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka's long-running ethnic conflict. In more recent times, suicide car bombings have been used throughout the Islamic world, especially in Iraq, by jihadist organization such as groups affiliated to al Qaeda.

Mass car bombings (by date)

2000s

1990s

1980s

1920s-1970s

Assassinations by car bombings (by date)

External links

• A Video of a detected car bomb (VBIED) going off
• A history of the car bomb (Asia Times)

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