inSCIghts

First Responders Check Your IED IQ

October 30th, 2011 | Author: Dr. Ross Riggs

The Police Blotter - If there is anything of which you, as a street police officer, should be aware, it is the violent, indiscriminate murder that is being caused throughout law enforcement and other public safety first responders, by IED’s, Improvised Explosive Devices.

The Homeland Security Network recently ran a series of articles on IED’s which highlights the increase in IED use, some new tactics by those who deploy these vicious weapons against our cops. According to US Army Lt. General Barbero, IED attacks “outside Afghanistan and Iraq have more than doubled in the last three years.” (emphasis added) The key point is outside Afghanistan and Iraq. The simple technology of creating, deploying, and detonating these devices has been turned against law enforcement in our own cities and towns.

This is happening not just in the United States but across the world. Authorities report that

“…from January to September, there were an average of 608 attacks per month in 99 countries; including 367 IED attacks in the US alone during that same time frame.” 

Consider those numbers, 608 deadly attacks in 9 months. That is about 67 per month, more than two every single day. Now, these numbers are not strictly attacks against law enforcement. It can be drug wars between gangs but regardless when that kind of violence happens in our cities and towns, first responders are still laying their lives on the line when they respond to these kinds of calls.

According to the USA Today article quoted in “IED Use on the Rise” in HSN,

“IED’s popularity among criminals, narcotics traffickers and terrorists continues to grow, aided by the spread of online of bomb-making technology, like the 102-page English-language e-book titled ‘The Explosives Course…’ is putting first responders at risk in a way in which they never have been previously."

Very often the street police officer has heard the term that they are the thin blue line of first defense between civilization and anarchy. Now, though, they are truly the first line of defense in an all-out battle for the societies in which we desire to live.

General Barbero wrote that “…the IED is cheap, effective and readily available…” and he also warned each of us that it is and will be an “enduring threat.” Perhaps one of the most horrific ways in which this threat is being carried out against law enforcement and first responders is by luring them into a trap. According to an HSN report on based on information coming out of Mexico this use of vehicle borne improvised explosive devices (VBIED) is call the “Trojan Horse of Terror.”
 

The VBIED is like the original Trojan Horse of the Battle of Troy that allowed the Greeks to final enter the City of Troy and end their ten year siege because “it arouses little suspicion, making it a not uncommon means of deploying devices.” The twist that has been put upon the use of VBIEDs is that officers are being lured to the location of a VBIED rather than trying to force the VBIED into where the police are. One example was a planned aggressive act by the offenders, known drug cartel, armed in a motor vehicle of their own that led the police into pursuing them. The offenders manipulated the pursuit until the officers were within striking distance of the VBIED and detonated it. “This tactic has been used indiscriminately against many targets including first responders.” This type of ‘Trojan Horse’ tactic is becoming more prevalent in the U.S. According to one expert, there were four such incidents in the US between mid-2010 and January 2011. According to ‘InSight Crime’ an organization that tracks organized crime and security issues, there have been at least another three incidents between January and September 2011.

What can you do as a law enforcement officer working the patrol assignment that could come in contact with just such a VBIED or an IED? Education and training are the keys. For example, on-line at the Federation of American Scientists site you can find a military manual of five chapters [PDF] dedicated to identifying and mitigating the risk of IEDs and VBIEDs. There are also a variety of YouTube videos that show the training used to avoid them and the consequences of a close encounter with an IED. The better the training you can arrange for yourself or that can be arranged for your department the better prepared you will be in the event the ‘Trojan Horse’ is set at your gate.

Security Consulting Investigations, LLC can arrange for the training within our department. Contact SCI at director@security-consulting.us. You may also contact us through www.security-consulting.us

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“The Explosives Course” was written by students of Abu Khabab Al-Masri, the al-Qaeda explosives expert killed in a drone attack by US forces in 2008.

Sylvia Longmire, a former Air Force Special Agent, former senior border security analyst for the State of California, and author of the recently published book “Cartel: The Coming Invasion of Mexico’s Drug Wars”