A bomb took out a platoon's worth of Assad's troops:
Thirty one Syrian soldiers were killed on Sunday in bomb attack at a government building in a town on the outskirts of the capital, a monitoring group that documents Syrian battlefield developments said.
News like this is rare, you have to admit. And this despite the fact that over 120,000 have died in the civil war so far. Why so few bombings?
I mean, bombings were the main enemy effort in Iraq. IEDs, VBIEDs, even launched IEDs. And the Iranian favorite--EFPs.
And where are the jihadi suicide bombers? We usually counted very few foreign jihadis in Iraq. Several hundred crossed into Iraq each month and they largely provided the suicide bombers. Despite that small number, there were sometimes hundreds per year.
So if there are tens of thousands of jihadis fighting Assad, why so few of the signature weapons that defined jihadi bombings in Iraq?
I know, part of the reason is that fighting to control territory and direct fire is more of a practice than in Iraq where directly fighting US troops was damn near suicide. But I remain surprised that bombings aren't a bigger part of the rebel arsenal given the size of the jihadi contingent.
Why is this so?
UPDATE: Close, but no cigar:
Suicide bombers struck the Iranian Embassy [in Beirut, Lebanon] on Tuesday, killing 23 people, including a diplomat, and wounding more than 140 others in a "message of blood and death" to Tehran and Hezbollah — both supporters of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
This suicide bombing is clearly related to the Syria war. But where are the jihadi suicide bombers in Syria itself? I find it hard to imagine that it is simply a matter of lack of reporting. One, Assad would publicize them to paint himself as a valiant fighter against jihadis. And two, jihadis would celebrate them by publicizing them.
UPDATE: Speak of the Devil. This one counts:
Two suicide bombers from al Qaeda-linked groups blew themselves up at an army post in the Syrian town of al-Nabak on Wednesday, halting an advance by President Bashar al-Assad's forces near the Syrian-Lebanese border, activists said.
I don't think I've been missing reports of attacks. It would be interesting to see statistics on suicide bombings in Syria to compare to the Iraq War.
UPDATE: Strategypage notes suicide bombings in Syria:
The most potent rebel weapon remains the suicide bomber attacks, which are far fewer than the Assad use of air strikes and artillery. The suicide bombers are controlled by the Islamic terrorist groups and are carried out for the publicity and to assist operations by the Islamic terrorist rebels.
"Most potent" doesn't address quantity, of course. But I'm making progress on figuring out what is going on!
