Improvised explosive device

An improvised explosive device (IED) is a bomb constructed and deployed in ways other than in conventional military action.

For instance, in recent Middle Eastern conflicts, homemade bombs called "improvised explosive devices" (IEDs) have been employed by insurgent fighters to great effectiveness.

IEDs are generally seen in heavy terrorist actions or in asymmetric unconventional warfare by insurgent guerrillas or commando forces in a theatre of operations.

In addition to traditional military methods, guerrilla groups may rely also on destroying infrastructure, using improvised explosive devices, for example.

American pizza delivery man Brian Douglas Wells was killed in 2003 by an explosive fastened to his neck, purportedly under duress from the maker of the bomb.

Wells was killed when an explosive collar detonated while he was surrounded by police in his hometown of Erie, Pennsylvania.

In the second Iraq War, IEDs were used extensively against US-led invasion forces and by the end of 2007 they had become responsible for approximately 63% of coalition deaths in Iraq.

Insurgents used various guerrilla tactics, including mortars, missiles, suicide attacks, snipers, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), car bombs, small arms fire (usually with assault rifles), and RPGs (rocket propelled grenades), as well as sabotage against the petroleum, water, and electrical infrastructures.

The bomber will conceal explosives on and around their person, commonly using a vest, and will use a timer or some other trigger to detonate the explosives.

An explosive belt (also called suicide belt, suicide vest) is an improvised explosive device, a belt or a vest packed with explosives and armed with a detonator, worn by suicide bombers.

Car bombs can carry thousands of pounds of explosives and may be augmented with shrapnel to increase fragmentation.

Fragmentation is the process by which the casing of a projectile from a bomb, barrel bomb, land mine, IED, artillery, mortar, tank gun, or autocannon shell, rocket, missile, grenade, etc. is shattered by the detonation of the explosive filler.

In 2011 a schoolgirl in Sydney, Australia had a suspected collar bomb attached to her by an attacker in her home.

An apparent collar bomb was placed around the neck of 18-year-old student Madeleine Pulver, by a balaclava-clad home intruder.

In the conflicts of the 21st century, anti-personnel improvised explosive devices (IED) have partially replaced conventional or military landmines as the source of injury to dismounted (pedestrian) soldiers and civilians. These injuries were reported in BMJ Open to be far worse with IEDs than with landmines resulting in multiple limb amputations and lower body mutilation. Common forms of VOIED include the under-vehicle IED (UVIED), improvised landmines, and mail bombs.

Overlapping both categories is the improvised explosive device (IED), which is "a device placed or fabricated in an improvised manner incorporating explosive material, destructive, lethal, noxious, incendiary, pyrotechnic materials or chemicals designed to destroy, disfigure, distract or harass. They may incorporate military stores, but are normally devised from non-military components."

An IED designed for use against armoured targets such as personnel carriers or tanks will be designed for armour penetration, by using a shaped charge that creates an explosively formed penetrator.

EFPs have been used in improvised explosive devices against armoured cars, for example in the 1989 assassination of the German banker Alfred Herrhausen (attributed to the Red Army Faction), and by Hezbollah in the 1990s.

The presence of chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear (CBRN) material in an IED requires additional precautions.

In the new millennium, the term CBRNe was introduced as an extension of CBRN - the e in this term representing the enhanced (improvised) explosives threat.

The supposed effectiveness of IED jamming systems, including vehicle- and personally-mounted systems, has caused IED technology to essentially regress to command-wire detonation methods.

The THOR III is man-portable, counter-radio-controlled improvised explosive device (IED) jammer built by Sierra Nevada Corp and employed by the U.S. Army, U.S. Marine Corps, and partnered Afghan National Army soldiers in Afghanistan.

By combining the explosives from several mines and placing them in tin cans, the insurgents made them more powerful, but sometimes also easier to detect by Soviet sappers using mine detectors.

Land mines overlap with other categories of explosive devices, including unexploded ordnance (UXOs), booby traps and improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

As such, explosive ordnance disposal (IEDD) operators must be able to fall back on their extensive knowledge of the first principles of explosives and ammunition, to try and deduce what the perpetrator has done, and only then to render it safe and dispose of or exploit the device.

The render safe procedure (RSP) is the portion of the explosive ordnance disposal procedures involving the application of special explosive ordnance disposal procedures, methods and tools to provide the interruption of functions or separation of essential components of unexploded ordnance (including improvised explosive devices) to prevent an unacceptable detonation.

During the 2016 Pathankot attack, several casualties came from IEDs.

On 3 January, fresh gunshots were heard, and another security officer was killed by an IED explosion.

A vehicle-borne IED, or VBIED, is a military term for a car bomb or truck bomb but can be any type of transportation such as a bicycle, motorcycle, donkey (DBIED ), etc. They are typically employed by insurgents in particular ISIS, and can carry a relatively large payload.

A car bomb, lorry bomb, or truck bomb, also known as a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED), is an improvised explosive device placed inside a car or other vehicle and then detonated.

On 21 February 2013, two IEDs were used to carry out bombings in the Indian city of Hyderabad.

Andhra Pradesh's Director General of Police noted that Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) had been used in the two blasts to cause maximum damage.

These injuries were reported in BMJ Open to be far worse with IEDs than with landmines resulting in multiple limb amputations and lower body mutilation.

This type of injury has been especially common among soldiers wounded by improvised explosive devices in the Iraq War.

They are also used in Afghanistan by insurgent groups, and have caused over 66% of coalition casualties in the 2001–present Afghanistan War.

The armed opposition or anti-government elements – some Western news media tend to address them all simply as "Taliban" – have from 2008 into 2009 shifted their tactics from frontal attacks on pro-government forces to guerrilla type activities, including suicide, car and road side bombs (IEDs), and targeted assassinations, said a UNAMA report in July 2009.

It later emerged however, that these "advanced" IEDs were actually old IRA technology.

Between 1970 and 2005, the IRA had detonated 19,000 improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in the United Kingdom, an average of one every 17 hours for three and a half decades, arguably making it "the biggest terrorist bombing campaign in history".

Victim-operated improvised explosive devices (VOIED), also known as booby traps, are designed to function upon contact with a victim.

It can also be triggered by vehicles driving along a road, as in the case of improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

First such documented case was during the aftermath of 2016 shooting of Dallas police officers when a bomb disposal robot was used to deliver explosives to kill Micah Xavier Johnson, who was hiding in a place unaccesible to police snipers.

In many ways, the psychological impact imposed by snipers is quite similar to those of landmines, booby-traps, and IEDs (constant threat, high "per event" lethality, inability to strike back).

The IRA also used secondary devices to catch British reinforcements sent in after an initial blast as occurred in the Warrenpoint Ambush.

The IRA's South Armagh Brigade ambushed the British Army with two large roadside bombs at Narrow Water Castle outside Warrenpoint, Northern Ireland.

IEDs are being used by insurgents against government forces during the insurgency in Egypt (2013-present) and the Sinai insurgency.

A later roadside bomb south of the city wounded a further 6 officers.

Common forms of VOIED include the under-vehicle IED (UVIED), improvised landmines, and mail bombs.

Typically used devices were pressure cooker bombs, socket bombs, pipe bombs, bucket bombs, etc. The devices were used more for the act of terrorizing the urban population rather than for fatal causes, placed in front of governmental offices, street corners or road sides.

A pressure cooker bomb is an improvised explosive device (IED) created by inserting explosive material into a pressure cooker and attaching a blasting cap into the cover of the cooker.