Redstate

Posted at 10:10pm on Apr. 17, 2007 More chemical weapons in Iraq, part II

This time its in an attempted truck bomb

By Jeff Emanuel

Update:

Initially, military officials said the dump truck was laden with explosives and containers of nitric acid — an apparent attempt at crude chemical warfare on the part of insurgent bombers.

But later, on Tuesday, officials said that the containers held fuel, not acid.

“The containers were consistent with those normally used to transport nitric acid, but upon examination, they were found to be filled with gasoline,” a military statement read.

An attempt to explode a truck carrying nitric acid at a military checkpoint in Iraq failed yesterday because the vehicle overturned before reaching its target, Reuters reported via the LA Times.

A truck laden with nitric acid and explosives overturned before the driver could attack a joint security station operated by U.S. and Iraqi troops north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said today.

The use of nitric acid in bomb attacks could mark another shift in tactics by insurgents, who in recent months have rigged nearly a dozen truck bombs with chlorine gas, mainly in Al Anbar province.

In a statement, the U.S. military said a security patrol went to assist the driver of the truck after it overturned and found it loaded with eight containers of nitric acid and explosives.

It said the driver said he had been paid to attack the security station in Mushada.

According to the Nuclear Threat Initiative, "the possible use of nitric acid as a chemical supplement to conventional bombings" - a tactic which "mirrors recent bombings in which tanks of chlorines have been loaded on to car bombs" - emerged last week with the discovery, covered here at RS, of 33 barrels of the material at a pair of Baghdad houses.

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