Weapons: How Iran Kills American Soldiers
21st September 2015
Accusations that Iranian aid to Iraq is a danger to American troops there is based on past (2005-2011) actions by Iran against U.S. troops there. Much has been made of how Iran aided Islamic terrorists in Iraq after 2005, especially those who were trying to kill American troops. Iran is not known to be doing that now, but the fact that they did it before and are still calling for the destruction of the United States has a lot of Americans uneasy.
Because of some uniquely Iranian weapons it was possible to trace a specific number of American deaths in Iraq to Iran. Since 2014 the number of such deaths was commonly put at 500. That was known to be an estimate and the U.S. Department of Defense finally completed a search of its records and reported that the actual number Americans killed was 109. These uniquely Iranian weapons apparently first appeared in 2006, but in small numbers. That increased so that by 2007 a lot more Explosively Formed Penetrators (EFPs) bombs were showing up. In January 2007 about thirty of them were used to attack U.S. troops. That rose to 65 by April, and 99 in July. By the time U.S. troops left in 2011 it was estimated that about 120 American troops had been killed by EFP and over 600 wounded. Hundreds of other American troops were believed to have died, usually at the hands of Iran supported Iraqi militias, but the use of EFPs was unambiguous and Iran was the only source.