Explosive belt

Explosive belt

An explosive belt (also called suicide belt, Bomberpilot Jacket, suicide vest or shaheed belt) is a vest packed with explosives and armed with a detonator, worn by suicide bombers. Explosive belts are usually packed with nails, screws, bolts, and other objects that serve as shrapnel to maximize the number of casualties in the explosion.

History

Explosive belts were introduced by the Tamil Tiger group in Sri Lanka. The first use of one was in 1991 when Thenmuli Rajaratnam, a Tamil bomber, blew herself up and killed Rajiv Gandhi.

Today such devices are used mainly by Palestinian groups, such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, against military personnel in Israel and the Palestinian Territories. Organizations in ChechnyaFact|date=February 2007 and Iraq [cite news | author = Associated Press | title = Handicapped bombers kill dozens in Iraq | url = http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22945797/ | publisher = msnbc.com | date = 2008-02-01 | accessdate = 2008-02-01] have also used them in attacks.

Description

The explosive belt usually consists of several cylinders filled with explosive (de facto pipe bombs), or in more sophisticated versions with plates of explosive. The explosive is surrounded by a fragmentation jacket that produces the shrapnel responsible for most of the bomb's lethality, effectively making the jacket a crude body-worn claymore mine. Once the vest is detonated, the explosion resembles an omnidirectional shotgun blast. The most dangerous and the most widely used shrapnel are steel balls 3-7 mm in diameter. Other shrapnel material can be anything of suitable size and hardness, most often nails, screws, nuts, and thick wire. Shrapnel is responsible for about 90% of all casualties caused by this kind of device.

A "loaded" vest may weigh between 5 and 20 kg and may be hidden under thick clothes, usually jackets or snow coats.

There are several explosives in common use in the Middle East. C-4 is the most potentFact|date=March 2008, but also the rarest because it is the most difficult to obtain. Increased crackdowns by the Palestinian Authority led to the arrest of most skilled explosive makers and made smuggling more difficult, leading to less common use of TNT. Its replacement has been the much less stable and more dangerous, but easy to make, TATP, known as "Mother of Satan" for its instability. This shift led to many casualties among explosive makers as well as nearby civilians, as the clandestine laboratories that produce explosive belts are often located in residential areas, and it is not uncommon to find dozens or even hundreds of kilograms of TATP in a single location during a raidFact|date=August 2008. In some constructions, TATP is used only for the initiator, and the explosive itself is a homemade mixture similar to Ammonal.

Suicide vests cover the entire stomach and usually have shoulder straps.

A common security drill against suspected suicide bombers is to isolate the suspect to at least 15 meters away from other people, and ask him to remove his upper clothing (coat, shirt, etc.) in order to see if there is an explosive vest strapped under them. This drill is problematic when dealing with female suicide bombers. Alternatively, an infra red detector can be used.

See also

* bomb
* car bomb
* terrorism
* suicide bombing
** female suicide bomber
** child suicide bomber
** Baby Suicide Bomber
* animal bomb
* Groups using explosive belts:
** Hamas
** Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades
** Al-Qaeda
** Chechen rebel groups
** Iraqi insurgents
** Palestinian Islamic Jihad
** PKK
** Tamil Tigers

References

External links

* [http://www.waronline.org/en/terror/suicide.htm The mechanics of a living bomb]


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем сделать НИР

Look at other dictionaries:

  • explosive — {{Roman}}I.{{/Roman}} noun ADJECTIVE ▪ high ▪ a bomb containing 200 lb of high explosive ▪ powerful ▪ home made, improvised ▪ con …   Collocations dictionary

  • belt — noun 1 narrow piece of leather, etc. worn around the waist ADJECTIVE ▪ narrow, wide ▪ thick ▪ leather ▪ chain, studded …   Collocations dictionary

  • Batman's utility belt — Infobox comics elements name = Utility Belt imagesize = caption = Batman s utility belt and its contents publisher = DC Comics debut = Detective Comics #29 (July 1939) creators = Gardner Fox type = Equipment supports = Batman subcat=BatmanBatman… …   Wikipedia

  • Garibaldi Volcanic Belt — The Garibaldi Volcanic Belt is a north south range of volcanoes in southwestern British Columbia, Canada. It is the northern extension of the Cascade Volcanic Arc, a chain of volcanoes of major andesitic to dacitic stratovolcanoes extending… …   Wikipedia

  • Judas belt — A Judas belt consists of a number of small explosive rounds, each one typically 2 long and 1/2 in diameter, arranged sequentially along a common fuse. The belt is either laid out on the ground or suspended from a tree or wall, and the end of the… …   Wikipedia

  • Asteroid belt — For the album by Velvet Chain, see Asteroid Belt (album). The asteroid belt (shown in white) is located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The asteroid belt is the region of the Solar System located roughly between the orbits of the planets… …   Wikipedia

  • Green belt — A green belt or greenbelt is a policy or land use designation used in land use planning to retain areas of largely undeveloped, wild, or agricultural land surrounding or neighbouring urban areas. Similar concepts are greenways or green wedges… …   Wikipedia

  • Volcanic belt — [ Trans Mexican Volcanic Belt in Mexico ] A volcanic belt is a large volcanically active region. Other terms are used for smaller areas of activity, such as volcanic fields. Volcanic belts are found above zones of unusually high temperature (700… …   Wikipedia

  • Demolition belt — In military terminology, a demolition belt is a selected land area sown with explosive charges, mines, and other available obstacles to deny use of the land to enemy operations, and as a protection to friendly troops. There are two types of… …   Wikipedia

  • Shot belt — Shot Shot, n.; pl. {Shot}or {Shots}. [OE. shot, schot, AS. gesceot a missile; akin to D. schot a shot, shoot, G. schuss, geschoss a missile, Icel. skot a throwing, a javelin, and E. shoot, v.t. [root]159. See {Shoot}, and cf. {Shot} a share.] 1.… …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”