Car bombs are vehicles rigged with explosives, often used as a terrorist tactic to target innocent civilians and incite fear. The first recorded car bomb was in 1905, and they have since become more commonly used as weapons. Car bombs can be remotely detonated or driven to a site and detonated, with suicide car bombs becoming increasingly common. Militaries offer training in identifying and avoiding car bombs, and some terrorist organizations use two car bombs to target first responders.
A car bomb is a car that has been rigged with explosives, turning it into a giant bomb. When a car bomb is well designed, it can cause substantial damage, making car bombs a serious concern in some regions of the world, especially the Middle East where car bombs are in common use. As a general rule, the use of car bombs is classified as a terrorist tactic, especially as such weapons are often designed to target innocent civilians, with the aim of inciting fear.
The history of car bombs is nearly as old as the history of cars themselves; the first recorded example of a car bomb was in 1905. It was used in a failed assassination attempt on Abdul Hamid II, the Ottoman Sultan; he was finally deposed when the assassination didn’t work. The first car bombs were killer devices, classically wired into the car ignition so that they detonated when the vehicle was turned on. Later designs were either remotely detonated or installed with timers that triggered the bomb after a set amount of time or a set travel distance.
Over time, car bombs came to be used more as weapons, rather than specific vehicles, shall we say, for assassination. In the 1960s, the use of car bombs in some regions such as Asia and breakaway Ireland was quite common, and by the 1990s car bombs had also become a serious concern in the Middle East.
There are two ways to operate a car bomb. It can be remotely detonated or driven to a site and then detonated. The advantage of a remotely detonated car bomb is that no terrorists are injured or killed in the attack, thus conserving men for future activity. However, parking a car or large truck in a sensitive location can arouse the suspicion of law enforcement, so remotely detonated car bombs don’t always reach their target. As a result, the use of suicide car bombs is increasingly common, and in some cases such car bombs are actually proxy bombs, driven by people forced under duress, rather than volunteering for work.
In the military, a car bomb is known as a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device, or VBIED. Suicide car bombs are SVBIED. Due to the frequency of car bomb use in some regions, many militaries offer training in identifying and avoiding car bombs, with several agencies issuing guides outlining the blast radius of various sized vehicles. More perniciously, some terrorist organizations have taken to using two car bombs, using one to lure first responders into an area and then detonating another to kill or injure first responders.
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