- View PhotoABC News - 'Block-Buster' Truck Bomb One of the Biggest Ever (ABC News)
Afghan national security forces near the border with Pakistan recently intercepted one of the largest truck bombs ever built, a massive "vehicle-borne improvised explosive device," or VBIED, packed with some 61,500 pounds of explosives.
By comparison, the truck bomb that all but leveled the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995,
killing 168 people, was comprised of almost 5,000 lbs. of ammonium
nitrate fertilizer mixed with fuel oil. The same recipe is commonly used
in Afghanistan
to make a variety of IEDs that have killed hundreds of ISAF troops in
small numbers since 2001 -- but typically using dozens of pounds, not
thousands.
"We're talking something with the power to raze whole blocks in an
American city," Andrew Gumbel, author of last year's "Oklahoma City:
What the Investigation Missed -- And Why It Still Matters," told ABC
News.
Army Col. Christopher Garver, a spokesperson for the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force's
Joint Command in Kabul, told ABC News the massive bomb was discovered
Oct. 14 when the truck was stopped in Gardez, Afghanistan. The bomb, he
said was, in the military's estimation, "larger in comparison to some
others we have seen." Another Defense Department source said that it was
one of the largest truck bombs ever known to have been built.
"Vehicle-borne IEDs are one of the most significant threats to everyone
in Afghanistan, as we have seen over the summer fighting season," Garver
said.
As another point of reference, the TNT truck bomb that destroyed the U.S. Marine compound in Beirut 30 years ago, killing 241 American troops, was about one quarter the size of the Gardez VBIED.
Afghan and U.S. sources linked the recent Hino "jingle" truck, a local
variety of cargo truck, piled with TNT to the al Qaeda-aligned Haqqani
network, which allegedly has been responsible for almost all major truck
bombings in Kabul and in Afghanistan's eastern tribal areas near
Pakistan, from which the insurgents originate. A likely target was the
U.S. military's Forward Operating Base Goode near Gardez City, the
sources told ABC News.
Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security (NDS) said the explosives were "placed professionally under firewood" in the Hino truck.
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