ISIS used a new undetectable car bomb in its deadliest-ever attack that killed 292 Iraqis in Baghdad on July 3, BBC chief international correspondent Lyse Doucet reported Thursday.
"Daesh [known in the Western world as ISIS] used, for the first time, a new tactic which helped it to move undetected through checkpoints," a western security source told Doucet.
"We've never seen it before, and it's very worrying."
The ISIS attack was the deadliest in the world to date and orchestrated by a VBIED—vehicle-borne improvised explosive device—that was unique in how "the explosives were placed in the van, and how the chemicals were put together," according to the report.
"It's really difficult to make," an explosives expert who has knowledge of the ongoing investigation told Douct. "Daesh has given a lot of thought to how to move through checkpoints."
The tactic helped skirt detection by limiting quantities of chemicals to reduce detection.
The VBIED ignited an extraordinarily hot initial explosion—that experts estimated would have killed 20-30 people—and then secondary fires that were the most deadly.
"We are used to big fires, but the chemicals in this bomb were used for the first time in Iraq," Brigadier General Kadhim Bashir Saleh of the Civil Defense Force told Douct. "It was unique, strange, and terrible."
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