Iranian Bomb Parts Tracked to Florida

(Miami, Florida) Stuff like this just chafes my glutes.

Sixteen foreigners and overseas businesses were charged in Miami on Wednesday with illegally supplying U.S.-made electronic parts to Iran for producing explosives to kill American soldiers fighting in the Iraq War, federal authorities said.

The computer chips and other high-tech goods -- made in South Florida and other regions of the country -- were used by Iranian-controlled companies to make roadside bombs, federal officials said. The chips play an integral role in triggering the bombs, known as improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.

The IEDs have been a major cause of death and injuries to U.S. soldiers fighting in Iraq.

''We cannot allow American-made goods to threaten our soldiers abroad,'' said U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta, who said that the part numbers on the U.S.-made microchips matched those found on unexploded IEDs in Iraq.

U.S.-based technology exporters say they were tricked into selling items through front companies and didn't know the end user was Iran.

Just glute-chafing wonderful.