Syria booby-traps ammunition to take out rebel fighters, weapons
Date October 21, 2012
Exploding ... a Free Syrian Army fighter with his sniper rifle. Photo: Reuters
THE government of Syria, trying to contain a rapidly expanding insurgency, has resorted to one of the dirty tricks of the modern battlefield: salting the ammunition of anti-government fighters with ordnance that explodes inside rebels' weapons, often wounding and sometimes killing the fighters while destroying their hard-found arsenals.
The practice, which rebels said started in Syria early this year, is another element of the government's struggle to combat the opposition as Syria's military finds itself challenged across a country where it was, not long ago, an uncontested force.
The government controls the skies and with aircraft and artillery batteries it has pounded many rebel strongholds throughout this year. But the rebels continue to resist, mostly with small arms.
Doctored ammunition offers an insidious way to undermine the rebels' confidence in their ammunition supply while thinning their ranks.
''When they do this, you will lose both the man and the rifle,'' said Ghadir Hammoush, the commander of a fighting group in Idlib province, who said he knew of five instances in which rifles had exploded from booby-trapped ammunition.
The tactic is highly controversial, in that it is potentially indiscriminate.
The primary source for doctored ammunition has been the Syrian government, which mixes exploding cartridges with ordinary rounds on the black markets through which rebels acquire weapons, the commanders said.
Some booby-trapped ammunition may have entered Syria from Iraq, where the Pentagon and the CIA secretly passed doctored ammunition to insurgent groups, several US veterans and officials said.
