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The streets of Iraq are the most dangerous of places.

Nearly every day someone is killed or gravely wounded, often by vehicles turned into bombs.

At least some of those vehicles are coming from Texas streets.  And some of those people killed by those vehicles are U.S. troops.

Sgt. TJ Salazar has worked Houston Auto Theft for a dozen year.

“We know for a fact that the vehicles are going out all over the world. We know that they are going to the Middle East,” Salazar said.

And once they get there, it would be no surprise to find them used as weapons.

Lt. Greg Terp is the President of the North American Export  Committee and head of the Miami-Dade Police Auto Theft Unit. He’s tracked U.S. stolen cars’ links to terror abroad for years, and he’s found that some end up as vehicle borne improvised explosive devices, or as the military calls them, VBIEDs.

11 News

“They do create the terror that they are looking for,” Terp said. “It delivers the biggest bang.”

For the terrorists, any vehicle will do.

“A vehicle that looks like a U.S. vehicle that is being used is what they are looking for,” Terp said.

In November 2004, U.S. troops raided a number of targets in Fallujah, Iraq. At one site they found a vehicle bomb-making facility.  And inside that facility they found a Suburban, stripped on the inside, made ready for the explosives that would turn it into a weapon.

The truck was stolen.  It was registered in Houston.

“This is once instance where we interdicted.  But we don’t know how many we haven’t interdicted that are over there.  I think that you could easily say that there have been some others,” Terp said.

The possibilities from Houston alone are endless.  In 2006 alone, 24,236 cars were stolen here.

Nearly 20,000 of those vehicles were recovered, but 4,349 simply vanished – many of those likely exported.

The possibility that cars stolen in America are killing American troops is quietly getting high-level attention. 

The FBI’s Counterterrorism Unit has been investigating the possibility since 2005. 

Officials in Washington, D.C. confimed that agents have "identified cars and SUVs used in Iraq as vehicle borne improvised explosive devices that can be traced back to the U.S."

In numerous cases, sources said those incidents did, in fact, kill U.S. troops.

The vehicles used in those attacks had registrations from several states, including Texas, California, Florida and New York.

FBI agents continue to trace cars used in explosions.

Incidents involving car bombs in Iraq are very common.  11 News found 51 different incidents in just the last six weeks. But getting details on those incidents is tough. 

We sent 51 e-mails to military officials looking for information about each one of the recent bombings.  The majority of those requests received terse responses: “We do not have any information on VBIED attacks.”

When pressed further on why there was no information available aside from 51 press releases in six weeks: “We do not wish to give the enemy the upper hand in knowing how their actions are affecting coalition forces.”

Still, the military clearly knows significant details about the incidents, like the January 19th suicide vehicle bomb near Peshmerga that killed two soldiers, two civilians and wounded 38 others.

On that particular incident, the military’s response is clearer:

“The VBIED vehicle used was a dump truck, according to a post blast analysis.”

Look no further than January 20 to see the risk of stolen vehicle bombs.  In Karbala, a convoy of seven U.S.-made SUVs filled with insurgents was able to pass through at least three checkpoints before attacking U.S. soldiers, killing five.

In recent years various law enforcement organizations have taken great steps to stop stolen vehicles from getting out of the country. At the Port of Miami, almost every container is screened before it ever hits a ship. 

But why would terrorists bother to use a port when the Mexican border is a sieve?

“Easy. It’s like driving your own personal vehicle. You can drive across the bridge.  Nobody stops you,” Salazar said.

Sgt. Salazar is working to slow the rush of stolen vehicles across the border.

He and Sgt. Chris Bimonte have plenty of incentive to stop stolen cars being sent from the Port of Miami, because both men know the potential impact.

And that impact is far from the common perception of auto theft as a victimless crime.

“Right now, it’s report it to the insurance company, get my money and go out and get another car.  But if I know that something happened to one of our guys? People feel it,” Bimonte said.