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Leaflet bomb

American soldier loading a leaflet bomb during the Korean War

The leaflet bomb, also somtimes known as pamphlet bomb, propaganda bomb or ideological bomb is a technology for spreading airborne leaflet propaganda.

The first ideas to construct special bombs with which to dispearse airborne leaflets was put forward by French and British air force officers during World war II but it was first implemented in 1943 by the American military in the form of the 'Monroe bomb' named after its inventor the USA Air Force Captain James Monroe of the 305th BG. It was developed from laminated paper containers that had been used used to transport M-17 incendiary bombs

Later during the Korean war a modified version of the leaflet bomb - the 'feather bomb' - was developed by the American military to be used to disseminate biological warfare agents. It was also controversially claimed by the Chinese government - and supported by an United Nations commission led by the British biochemist and historian of science Joseph Needham - that US had used biological weapons during the Korean War. This have been strongly denied by the US governments and in 1998 evidence was found that showed that this was concocted by the Chinese and Russian governments.

Leaflet bombs and anti-state terrorism

Leaflet bombs has not only been used by states for purposes of military warfare but has since the 1940s also been connected to anti-state terrorism. Historian of terrorism David Rapoport have developed one of the most well used models of modern terroriosm dividing it in four waves . The leaflet bombs has been used by terrorist groups mainly belonging to the second 'anti-colonial' and third 'new left' waves of rebel terrorism.

Anti-Colonial Terrorism

The use of leaflet bombs by non-state terrorist groups began in 1945 when the Irgun group developed a bomb that was not dropped from planes but "deposited in the street, ticked away until detonation, then scattered news sheet over a wide and smoky area". In September 1945 three of Irguns leaflet bombs exploded in Jersusalem and injured nine people .

In the 1970s the African National Congress (ANC) started to use a version of the leaflet bomb in South Africa.

Latin America

The leaflet bomb has been relatively popular in Latin America with several recorded uses of various groups advocating political violence and using terrorist tactics.

In the 1980s the FMLN in El Salvador used this technology under the name of 'propaganda bomb'. It was one of the "favorite tactics" of its urban militia groups and preferable used in public places like markets or public parks. The design of the bomb was adapted to the local environment in that it

consisted of a cardboard box with a small, low-power explosive underneath a large number of propaganda leaflets. The explosive was set off by a homemade time igniter. The box was disguised to look like any ordinary package or box that might be carried by someone going or returning from a trip to the marketplace.

The use of leaflet bombs played a part in the FMLN:s recruitment process known to them as fogueo - which meant to experience fire or fire-harden something - which was the process by which the recruits "were toughened and the weak and fainthearted were weeded out". The fogueo process was

a very carefully designed program of increasingly risky operations in support of the guerilla movement. As the candidates successfully completed each operation, it gave them confidence to carry out the next danger level of operation until they became full-fledged guerilla combatants.

This process began with low-level information-gathering and propgandan activities in support of FMLN where the culminating activity before being ready for "combat military activity" could be the making and exploding of a leaflet bomb.

In Honduras the Popular Movement for Liberation (MPL) and Morazanist Patriotic Front (FPM) have also used propaganda bombs during the 1990s.

In Ecuador several terrorist group have used leaflet bombs. The Revolutionary Armed Corps (CAR) was according to the Ecudorian police "an extreme leftist group" which is only known for one attempted attack on February 20, 2001 when a leaflet bomb containing 150 pamphlets was discovered and successfully defused by the police. The communist Group of Popular Combatants (GCP) has on several occasions during 2001-2005 used leaflet bombs. In 2001 it was blamed by authorities for a pamphlet bomb and later the same year the group claimed responsibility for detonating a pamphlet bomb in downtown Quito that let out hundreds of pamphlets protesting against Plan Colombia. In 2002 The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Ecuador set off a leaflet bomb in a McDonald’s restaurant in Guayaquil that injured three people and caused severe damage to the property.

Bibliography

Bell, Bowyer (1985), Terror Out of Zion: Irgun Zvai Leumi, Lehi and the Palestine Underground, 1929-1949.
José Angel Moroni Bracamonte & David Spencer (1995) Strategy and Tactics of the Salvadoran FMLN Guerillas: Last Battle of the Cold War, Blueprint for Future Conflicts.
Friedman, Herbert A. "Psychological Warfare of the Malayan Emergency 1948-1960", PSYWAR.org.
Garnett, David A. (1947), The Secret History of PWE: The Political Warfare Executive 1939-1945 (1947; St Ermins Press, 2002).
Peffer, John, "Paper Bullets: An Interview with Herbert A. Friedman", Cabinet: A Quarterly Magazine of Art and Culture, 12 (Fall 2003/ Winter 2004), available online at http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/12/pefferFriedman.php
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http://www.rochester.edu/in_visible_culture/Issue_7/Gabrys/gabrys.html#fn3