BAGHDAD, Aug. 4 (UPI) -- U.S. and British forces are concerned that bombs planted by Iraqi insurgents are becoming much larger, more powerful and lethal, The New York Times reports.
Military officials said the device that blew up beneath a U.S. Marines amphibious vehicle Wednesday near Haditha was powerful enough to flip the 25-ton vehicle, and killed 14 Marines.
On July 23, a 500-pound bomb buried on a road southwest of Baghdad Airport detonated underneath a Humvee carrying four U.S. soldiers. They were all killed, and the blast left a crater 6 feet deep and nearly 17 feet wide. The bomb was meant to be dropped from an aircraft, and military explosives experts said was probably Russian in origin.
Soon after the blast, a British explosives expert stepped on a second, smaller bomb buried near the first and was badly wounded. A third device, hidden a few yards away, was found and defused.
"Our assessment is that they are probably going off to school" to learn how to make bombs that can destroy armored vehicles, a U.S. officer told the newspaper.
