Improvised explosive device

An improvised explosive device (IED) is a bomb constructed and deployed in ways other than in conventional military action. It may be constructed of conventional military explosives, such as an artillery shell, attached to a detonating mechanism. IEDs are commonly used as roadside bombs, or homemade bombs.

The term "IED" was coined by the British Army during the Northern Ireland conflict to refer to booby traps made by the IRA, and entered common use in the U.S. during the Iraq War.

IEDs are predominantly utilized by violent non-state actors, such as guerrilla or terrorist organizations, who use them in the context of strategies and tactics of insurrection, guerrilla warfare, asymmetric warfare, urban warfare or in terrorist operations. IEDs can also be utilized by state special forces or commando forces, to conduct unconventional warfare in a theatre of operations, such as in the case, for example, of the United States Army Special Forces.

Background

An IED can be defined as a device placed or fabricated in an improvised manner incorporating destructive, lethal, noxious, pyrotechnic or incendiary chemicals and designed to destroy, incapacitate, harass or distract; it may incorporate military stores, but is normally devised from non-military components. IEDs may incorporate military or commercially sourced explosives, and often combine both types, or they may otherwise be made with homemade explosives (HME).

An IED has generally five components: a switch (activator), an initiator (fuse), container (body), charge (explosive), and a power source (battery); an IED designed for use against armoured targets such as personnel carriers or tanks will be designed for armour penetration, by using, for example, a shaped charge that creates an explosively formed penetrator; IEDs are extremely diverse in design and may contain many types of initiators, detonators, penetrators, and explosive loads. Some particularly sophisticated IEDs can also incorporate anti-handling or anti-defusing systems: this was the case, for example, of the IED prepared by John Birges in 1980, used in an extortion attempt against the Harvey's Resort Hotel.