Non-Subscriber Extract
SVBIED tactics evolve in Pakistan
29 June 2009
Composite image showing the route and result of the Lahore attack. (PA and Google Earth/Digital Globe)
The suicide bombings in Lahore on 27 May and the Pearl Continental Hotel in Peshawar on 9 June demonstrated a tactical advance on earlier attacks in Pakistan. The drivers of Suicide Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Devices (SVBIED) are now being supported by gunmen who are clearing security barricades to allow the vehicle to enter the targeted facility.
The use of gunmen to clear the way for SVBIEDs is a well-established tactic. An attack launched by El-Gihad extremists on the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad on 19 November 1995 set the pattern. One attacker threw grenades at the guards while a second drove an SVBIED into the embassy compound and detonated it, killing 16 people and the bombers in the process, according to the account of the incident in writer Lawrence Wright's book The Looming Tower .
The same tactic was used in Al-Qaeda's attack on the US embassy in Nairobi on 7 August 1998. Muhammad al-Owhali, one of the two Saudis in the SVBIED, was armed with a pistol and a stun grenade and tasked with raising a security barrier so the vehicle could get closer to the embassy. He left his pistol in the truck and failed to raise the barrier, but managed to throw his stun grenade, causing an initial explosion that drew people to the embassy's windows, thereby increasing the number killed by the primary blast.