It shouldn’t be so surprising, considering that lots of Iraqi insurgents came out of Iraq’s huge Saddam-era military, or that some had help from elite Iranian agents. But here’s an overview of some of the more ingenious, lesser-known innovations in asymmetric warfare that insurgents developed during the Iraq war to neutralize the U.S.’s conventional advantages.

The Truck- and Wheelbarrow-Based Rocket Launcher. How to turn a truck into a rocket system: first, lease a Toyota. In October 2004, just outside Fallujah, Iraqis were observed mounting a “homemade rocket launcher” onto a “small white Toyota pickup.” A High-Mobility Artillery Rocket System this wasn’t. But each rocket tube within the truck contained multiple rockets — and it wasn’t the only one. Southwest of a Marine observation post, the truck met up with another makeshift mobile rocket-launcher and attempted to take the post out in tandem.

Within weeks, the Marines invaded the city for what became known as the Second Battle of Fallujah. But that didn’t stop the advance of improvised mobile rocket launchers. In May 2005, outside nearby Ramadi, troops investigating incoming rocket fire found a “wheelbarrow… with modified rocket launchers welded on the underside.” The wheelbarrow-based rockets were apparently launched remotely: the system was connected to a battery “wired to a phone-base station.” Two months later, an Iraqi was detained on suspicion of modifying dump trucks to launch rockets.

Encrypted Communications. Several insurgent groups maintained an impressive amount of operational secrecy and tactical discipline, often keeping U.S. snoops at bay. A clue as to how came on June 11, 2009, when U.S. and Iraqi troops at a hospital outside of Baghdad uncovered a “historical” cache of communications equipment used by the Mahdi Army, one of the hardest-core Shiite militias. Amplifiers, tuners and radio telegraph adapters were somewhat antiquated but looked factory-fresh.

The report of the find indicated that Mahdi Army leaders had real capabilities for directing their forces from long distances: “This equipment could be used to conduct long range, encrypted communications, indicating a high level [Mahdi Army/splinter force command-and-control] capacity.” All the gear was “designed for ground or vehicle mounting;” the report suspects Iranian forces provided it to the militia “as part of a sophisticated foreign intelligence project.” Ominously, the report concludes that the find “seems to corroborate the thesis that [redacted] is seeding [redacted] with resources to become a future [redacted].”

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Authors: Spencer Ackerman and Adam Rawnsley

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