Suicide-attack jackets bought by radical group

BAGHDAD — Scores of Iraqi-made suicide bombers’ jackets missing since the war that ousted Saddam Hussein have fallen into the hands of the radical extremist group Ansar al-Islam, according to illegal-weapons traders.

Although suicide bombers in Iraq so far have relied mainly on explosives packed in trucks or cars, there have been at least two recent uses of suicide jackets in targeted attacks and security officials fear their use will become more pervasive.

The jackets are especially dangerous in the winter when they can be worn inconspicuously, allowing bombers to approach their targets without arousing suspicion.

The Iraqi station chief of the FBI confirmed that the agency has obtained “more than one” intact suicide bomber’s jacket.

At coalition headquarters, FBI station chief Ed Worthington gave the bureau’s only on-the-record interview in Iraq.

“The FBI, in coordination with the military and other agencies, is highly concerned about any attack. We are just as worried about suicide jackets as we are about improvised explosive devices found alongside roads. The FBI is interested in examining all explosive devices for forensics,” he said.

“We have obtained more than one suicide bomber’s jacket, and we have subjected them to forensic testing,” Mr. Worthington added.

About 220 suicide bombers’ jackets were discovered in Iraq as U.S. forces swept into Baghdad, as was reported in The Washington Times on April 15.

Army Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks, deputy director of operations for the U.S. Central Command, told reporters that about 80 more jackets appeared to have been removed from the elementary school where the main cache was found. They might have ended up in the hands of foreign fighters, he said.

U.S. sources said at the time that each jacket was lined with several pounds of C-4 plastic high explosive laced with ball bearings.

The Washington Times subsequently has uncovered the origins of the jackets and learned how they got into the hands of Ansar al-Islam, a militant Kurdish group linked to the al Qaeda terror network and based along Iraq’s border with Iran.

An arms dealer has told a former Iraqi army officer that 169 working jackets, together with explosives, were sold to the movement, which U.S. officials suspect of involvement in several postwar terror attacks. The price was said to be the equivalent of $470 apiece.

The jackets were made in the months preceding the war on secret orders issued by Saddam Hussein’s son Uday, according to an Iraqi ex-general who was tasked with making fuses for the jackets. He says that he made 500 of them and that they were taken away in a vehicle with markings that read, “Olympic Committee.”

Uday Hussein ran the ministry of sports and the Olympic Committee as a personal fiefdom, but his main military activity was to command the Fedayeen Saddam. These paramilitary forces were trained in guerrilla warfare and were to have been issued the suicide bombers’ jackets during the war.

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