January 24, 2008: In Iraq, years of compiling data on
terrorists, their families and the areas where they usually hang out, has led
to the recent discovery of a spectacular number of bomb factories and weapons
storage sites. Captured terrorists are more easily turned, and are giving up
location data on dozens of such sites so far this year. Most can be safely
destroyed with a smart bomb, because the intel people have carefully surveyed
the areas and found no civilians nearby.
The smart bomb targets can include roadside bombs set up in remote
areas. The bomber pilot can use the targeting pod to make sure no one is around
the target, then release the smart bomb. The explosion is usually captured to
video, so intel people can confirm that there was a secondary explosion (as the
explosive material in the target area goes up). You can often tell what was at
the target area by the nature of the secondary explosion. When it's believed that valuable intel
material (documents, computers, cell phones) may be at the target site, troops
will often be sent in (along with small robots, to do the really risky snooping
around). But in many cases of late, there were just too many targets, and not
enough troops and droids to check every site out. Most, it was known by now,
just contain the weapons and such, and can be disposed of with a smart bomb.
