WASHINGTON -- Car and truck bomb attacks have fallen to their lowest level in Iraq in almost four years, according to the military command in Baghdad and a private firm that tracks violence there. In May, there were 23 car and truck bomb attacks, the fewest since August 2004, when there were 18. Last month, the Multi-National Force-Iraq reported 24 such attacks.Cars and trucks packed with explosives have been responsible for some of the deadliest attacks in Iraq. Roadside bombs generally target a single vehicle; terrorists use car bombs to inflict mass casualties, often aiming them at ethnic or religious rivals.
The decline in these attacks, which parallels a drop in roadside bomb blasts, is tied to better security in Iraq, says Dakota Wood, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Counterinsurgency tactics have placed a premium on making neighborhoods safer. About 80,000 Sunnis, many of them former insurgents, are paid about $8 a day to work as security guards.
'It's a telling measure,' he says of the decline in car bombs. 'I don't know that it's a be-all, end-all measure. As groups lay a tighter claim to an area, they may feel less of a need to prosecute attacks on rival groups.'
Navy Lt. David Russell, a military spokesman in Iraq, traced the reduction in car bombs to tips about terrorists from citizens, aggressive operations against al-Qaeda in Iraq insurgents and the improving performance of Iraqi security forces.
The military's data differ from the Triton report, which the Pentagon's Joint IED Defeat Organization uses for information on terrorist attacks. According to Triton, there were 28 car bomb attacks in May 2008, the last month for which it had complete statistics. HMS, the British firm that produces the report, collects its data from news media reports, websites and the military. The report still matches the military's trend in showing car bomb attacks at a four-year low. Overall, Triton found the monthly average for the preceding six months was 44 car bomb attacks.
Triton noted that several weapons caches, including munitions that could have been used in car bombs, were seized by Iraqi security forces. The materials included hundreds of pounds of homemade explosives.
Among vehicle bomb attacks cited by Triton in May:
.In Fallujah on May 16, a suicide bomber targeted police officers in Fallujah in Anbar province, killing four and injuring nine.
In Tal Afar in Nineveh province on May 27, a car bomb parked in a market killed four people and wounded 46 others.
In Baghdad on May 26, a suicide bomber who had explosives strapped to a motorcycle targeted Sunni security volunteers, killing five people and wounding 11
Car bomb attacks continue to kill and maim. Sunday, a car bomb killed one in Baghdad and wounded at least 10 others.