Explosive belt
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An explosive belt (also called suicide belt or a suicide vest) is an
History
The Chinese used explosive vests during the Second Sino-Japanese War.[1][2] A Chinese soldier detonated a grenade vest and killed 20 Japanese at Sihang Warehouse. Chinese troops strapped explosives like grenade packs or dynamite to their bodies and threw themselves under Japanese tanks to blow them up.[3] This tactic was used during the Battle of Shanghai, where a Chinese suicide bomber stopped a Japanese tank column by exploding himself beneath the lead tank,[4] and at the Battle of Taierzhuang, where Chinese troops rushed at Japanese tanks and blew themselves up with dynamite and grenades.[5][6][7][8][9] During one incident at Taierzhuang, Chinese suicide bombers destroyed four Japanese tanks with grenade bundles.[10][11]
The use of
Description
The explosive belt usually consists of several cylinders filled with explosive (de facto pipe bombs), or in more sophisticated versions with plates of explosive. The explosive is surrounded by a fragmentation jacket that produces the shrapnel responsible for most of the bomb's lethality, effectively making the jacket a crude, body-worn, Claymore mine. Once the vest is detonated, the explosion resembles an omnidirectional shotgun blast. The most dangerous and the most widely used shrapnel are steel balls 3–7 mm (1⁄8–9⁄32 in) in diameter.[12] Other shrapnel material can be anything of suitable size and hardness, most often nails, screws, nuts, and thick wire. Shrapnel is responsible for about 90% of all casualties caused by this kind of device.
A "loaded" vest may weigh between 5 and 20 kilograms (10 and 45 lb) and may be hidden under thick clothes, usually jackets or snow coats.
A suicide
A common
The discovery of remains as well as incidentally unexploded belts or vests can offer
Forensic investigation
Suicide bombers who wear the vests are often obliterated by the explosion; the best evidence of their identity is the head, which often remains relatively intact because it is separated and thrown clear off the body by the explosion. Journalist Joby Warrick conjectured: "The vest's tight constraints and the positioning of the explosive pouches would channel the energy of the blast outward, toward whoever stood directly in front of him. Some of that energy wave would inevitably roll upward, ripping the bomber's body apart at its weakest point, between the neck bones and lower jaw. It accounts for the curious phenomenon in which suicide bombers' heads are severed clean at the moment of detonation and are later found in a state of perfect preservation several metres away from the torso's shredded remains."[15]
See also
- Car bomb
- Terrorism
- Suicide weapon
- Suicide attack
- Inghimasi
- Female suicide bomber
- Child suicide bombers in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict
- Groups using explosive belts:
- Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades
- Al-Qaeda
- Boko Haram
- Chechenrebel groups
- Hamas
- Hezbollah
- Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant(ISIS/ISIL/IS)
- Iraqi insurgents
- Kurdistan Worker's Party
- Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (Tamil Tigers)
- Palestinian Islamic Jihad
- Taliban
References
- ^ 网易. "台儿庄巷战:长官电令有敢退过河者 杀无赦_网易军事" [Taierzhuang Street Fight: The Chief Executive Order has the courage to retreat to the river]. war.163.com (in Chinese). Archived from the original on 2018-06-19.
- ^ Wong, Bun. "Taierzhuang street fighting : Executive power to make those who have dared to retreat across the river Unforgiven - Netease International News". Archived from the original on 2017-10-20.
- ^ Schaedler, Luc (2007). Angry Monk: Reflections on Tibet: Literary, Historical, and Oral Sources for a Documentary Film (PDF) (Thesis Presented to the Faculty of Arts of the University of Zurich For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy). University of Zurich, Faculty of Arts. p. 518. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-07-19. Retrieved 24 April 2014.
- ISBN 978-1612001678. Retrieved 24 April 2014.
- ^ "Chinese Tank Forces and Battles before 1949". TANKS! E-Magazine (#4). Summer 2001. Archived from the original on 7 August 2014. Retrieved 2 August 2014.
- ^ Xin Hui (August 1, 2002). "Xinhui Presents: Chinese Tank Forces and Battles before 1949". Newsletter 1-8-2002 Articles. Archived from the original on 2014-08-08. Retrieved 2014-08-02.
- ISBN 9812610677. Retrieved 24 April 2014.
- ISBN 978-0-9838435-9-7. Archived from the original on 26 April 2014. Retrieved 24 April 2014.)
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ignored (help - ISBN 978-9814312998. Retrieved April 24, 2014.
- ^ International Press Correspondence, Volume 18. Richard Neumann. 1938. p. 447. Retrieved 24 April 2014.
- ^ Epstein, Israel (1939). The people's war. V. Gollancz. p. 172. Retrieved 24 April 2014.
- ^ "What is Shrapnel?". NBC News.
- ^ Niiler, Eric (Jan 22, 2014). "Sochi Suicide Bomber Threat: Why Terrorists Use Women". Discovery.net. Discovery Communications. Archived from the original on 2015-11-25. Retrieved 2014-04-27.
- ^ AFP/NEWSCORE "Ugandan police find suicide vest, hunts suspects". July 13, 2010, New York Post. Retrieved ?
- ISBN 978-0-307-74231-5.