Editor’s note: Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin is a weekly online, subscription intelligence news service from the creator of WorldNetDaily.com – a journalist who has been developing sources around the world for the last 25 years.
WASHINGTON — A mystery munition knocked a U.S. Army M1A1 Abrams tank out of commission in Iraq, leading the Pentagon to question whether the terrorists have a secret weapon in their arsenal.
An unclassified Army report says a projectile punched through the vehicle and drilled a pencil-sized hole through the hull. The hole was so small that, according to the author’s report, “my little finger will not go into it.”
The Abrams tank is nearly invulnerable to attack. Only two have been disabled by enemy fire during the entire Iraq campaign, according to the Army Times. The other one was felled by a rocket-propelled grenade, or RPG-7. In the tank’s 20-year career, only rarely have any others been disabled by enemy fire.
 U.S. Army M1A1 Abrams tank |
Yet, shortly before dawn Aug. 28, this 69-ton tank, on routine patrol in Baghdad “was hit by something,” according to the report.
The small breach of the hull continued into the crew compartment, where it passed through the gunner’s seatback, grazed the kidney area of the gunner’s flak jacket and finally came to rest after boring a hole 1-? to 2 inches deep in the hull on the far side of the tank.
Experts analyzing the strange attack are almost certain it was not the result of an RPG-7 attack. They suspect the damage was the result of something new, which is causing grave concern among tank drivers in Iraq and in the Pentagon.
“The unit is very anxious to have this ‘SOMETHING’ identified,” wrote Terry Hughes, a technical representative from Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois, who wrote the report. “It seems clear that a penetrator of a yellow molten metal is what caused the damage, but what weapon fires such a round and precisely what sort of round is it? The bad guys are using something unknown and the guys facing it want very much to know what it is and how they can defend themselves.”
The four-man crew suffered only minor injuries in the attack. The tank commander received “minor shrapnel wounds to the legs and arms and the gunner got some in his arm” as a result of the attack, according to the report.
But whatever penetrated the tank created enough heat inside the hull to activate the vehicle’s Halon firefighting gear.
“Can someone tell us?” Hughes wrote. “If not, can we get an expert on foreign munitions over here to examine this vehicle before repairs are begun? Please respond quickly.”
So far, no one has been able to answer Hughes’ question.
One theory is an updated version of the RPG – perhaps of more sophisticated Russian origin.
An even more bizarre theory, given the extremely small size of the breach, is some kind of experimental, previously unknown particle-beam weapon.
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