Outside forces teaching Iraqi guerrillas

CAMP ANACONDA, Iraq -- Iraqi guerrillas blasting U.S. military convoys with improvised bombs hidden at roadsides may have learned tactics by talking to Chechen rebels and Taliban and al-Qaida fighters in Afghanistan, a U.S. Army intelligence officer told The Associated Press.

Iraqi rebels have been communicating with such outsiders through e-mail, telephone and personal visits, said Maj. Thomas Sirois, chief intelligence officer of the Army's 3rd Corps Support Command, which occupies this sprawling base north of Baghdad. He declined to identify the types of communication American intelligence officers have intercepted.

"I think they share information," Sirois said. "Individuals here who are fighting against us I'm sure are reaching out to see what has been successful in other locations, and probably trying to adapt those procedures here."

Some ambush techniques observed in Chechnya against the Russians and in Afghanistan against U.S. forces by al-Qaida and former Taliban militants "we've seen employed here" in Iraq, Sirois said.

Ambushing convoys

Like Iraq, recent conflicts in Chechnya and Afghanistan saw Islamic guerrillas hiding at roadsides to ambush military convoys with booby-trapped bombs and rocket-propelled grenades.

One Middle East military analyst said information being shared from Afghan and Chechen sources is probably technical assistance with fuses, remote-control detonators -- like cell phones -- and assembling the complex daisy-chained bombs that began appearing in Iraq in late summer.

Since the beginning of military operations in Iraq, with the March invasion, 483 American troops have died, according to the Defense Department. Of those, 330 died as a result of hostile action.

Suicide bombings blamed on Chechen separatists have killed more than 275 people in and around Chechnya and in Moscow in the past year. Russian troops in Chechnya suffer daily losses in rebel attacks and land-mine explosions.

"There will be people out there with the expertise who will be very happy to share it, because they want to see the U.S. project in Iraq fail," said Jeremy Binnie, with Jane's Sentinel Security Assessments in London. "With the technical things, there is some level of cooperation because they can get quite sophisticated."

Sirois monitors intelligence on Iraq's roads for the Army's 16,000-member 3rd Coscom, which operates the thousands of truck convoys traveling across Iraq each day, supplying U.S. military with fuel, food, water and other supplies. Attacks on the convoys grew more complex in the late summer and fall, with the number of attacks rising each month from May to November.

The number of highway ambushes -- usually involving roadside bombs -- began dropping in late November and through December, Sirois said. Still, on Monday, three U.S. soldiers were wounded when a bomb exploded as their convoy passed near a town north of Baghdad.

Al-Qaida links

U.S. military and intelligence officials have long said they believe members of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network have migrated to Iraq, but little evidence has been released to support their assertions. Sirois said he and other intelligence officers believe al-Qaida members are in Iraq but have seen no signs of Chechens or Afghans launching attacks alongside Iraqi guerrillas.

Some tactics used to attack U.S. convoys were homegrown as well, Sirois said, noting there is plenty of expertise among disaffected members of the disbanded Iraqi army.

The effectiveness of the roadside bombs, which the U.S. military calls IEDs or "improvised explosive devices," depends on them being carefully hidden on the edges of the convoy routes and detonated when an unsuspecting convoy passes.

The Army has found bombs disguised as curbs. Others have been hidden in lampposts, animal carcasses and the Army's ubiquitous brown plastic ration bags.

"We've seen some pretty ingenious disguises," Sirois told AP last week. "You name it, they hide IEDs in just about anything -- tires at the sides of roads, trash piles."

At the same time, Sirois said the ambushers' influence on American convoys was slipping, with 250 attacks in November and 200 in December. Perhaps more significantly, the rebels' bombs have grown smaller, less complex and less deadly, he said.

At the height of their attacks -- from late August to early November -- rebels were able to interconnect 15 or more large artillery shells into a single bomb that may have been assembled and buried at the side of a highway over a period of several nights or a week, he said. Some bombs used plastic explosives as well as artillery or mortar shells.

But for the past six weeks, most bombs have been smaller, sometimes a single, converted artillery or mortar round.

"Where in the past we've seen casualties and significant damage to our vehicles, lately the IEDs have been single rounds and they've done minimal damage to our vehicles," he said.

During December, the 3rd Coscom has seen one or two of its convoys attacked each day, with fewer than 10 casualties as of Dec. 30, Sirois said.

Since arriving in Iraq in late March, the 3rd Coscom has had four soldiers killed in action and 130 wounded -- with the most devastating attacks taking place in late summer and fall, Sirois said.

He attributes the drop in U.S. casualties to several factors, including the killing or capture of Iraqi insurgents and the seizing of their ammunition. The military has also cleared the roadsides of brush, trees and trash, removing hiding places. Last week, U.S. soldiers could be seen bulldozing huge eucalyptus trees that line the main highway north of Camp Anaconda.