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Sky News:

Revealed: Iraq Terrorists' Deadly New Tactic
Adam Arnold, Sky News Online

Al Qaeda in Iraq is renting residential buildings and rigging them with explosives in a cunning new tactic which has killed dozens of civilians, officials say.

The ploy has defied thousands of security forces in Baghdad by getting around the mass of checkpoints used to deter car bombings.

The new tactic has forced the police and army to change their own operations to counter the terrorists.

America's military has even come up with a new term - HBIED (house-borne improvised explosive device) for the attacks.

The attacks have also left hundreds of people injured in the past month in the Iraqi capital.

The HBIED phrase follows the IED (improvised-explosive device - homemade bomb) and VBIED (vehicle-borne improvised-explosive device - car bomb) into a terrorism vocabulary started in Iraq and then taken to Afghanistan.

Some 25 people were killed on election day, March 7, when explosives destroyed two buildings in north-east Baghdad.

The US military, which pointed the finger at al Qaeda, said the properties had been rented and deliberately blown up.

Another 35 people died on April 6, when explosives were planted in houses and shops in mostly Shi'ite neighbourhoods.

A number of those properties had been rented days earlier, security officials said.

Major General Qassim Atta, a Baghdad security forces spokesman, said: "Our forces are focusing on the renting of apartments and buildings."

Insurgents were continually looking to exploit gaps in the city's defences, he said.

"They change their methods periodically because most of their plans and tactics have been discovered. I believe they are already searching for another method of attack, maybe churches or bridges."

Counter-terrorism expert Brian Fishman said of the HBIED operations: "The tactic is seen as very disreputable, even among active insurgents."

But he added it allows them "to get around a lot of the tactics developed to prevent car bombs," such as the mass of security checkpoints in Baghdad.