What is known about the use of pagers as improvised explosive devices: The mechanism of action, the injuries, and what to expect in a hospital setting

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Among Military Returnees From Afghanistan and Iraq

ObjectiveTo explore the psychological consequences of improvised explosive device (IED) exposure as IEDs have been the greatest threat to UK military personnel in Afghanistan though the mental health consequences of...

Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) are an important concern to coalition forces during the conflicts in the Middle East. These devices are responsible for many casualties to American armed forces in the Middle East. These explosives are particularly dangerous because they are improvised with materials readily available to the designer, and there is no systematic way of explosive ordinance disposal. IEDs can be made from things such as standard military ammunition and can be detonated with common electronic devices such as cell phones and garage door openers. There is a great need for a low cost solution to neutralize these IEDs. At the Applied Physics Institute we are building a single function disrupter robot whose sole purpose is to neutralize these IEDs. We are modifying a toy remote control car to control it either wirelessly using WI-FI (IEEE 802.11) or wired by tethering the vehicle with an Ethernet cable (IEEE 802.3). The robot will be equipped with a high velocity fuze disrupter to neutralize the IED as well as a video camera for inspection and aiming purposes. This robot utilizes commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) components which keeps the cost relatively low. Currently, similar robot systems have been deployed in Iraq and elsewhere but their method of operation is such that it is impractical to use in non-combat situations. We will discuss our design and possible deployment scenarios.

Though Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) are commonly attributed to attacks carried out by terrorists in the Middle East, IEDs were also used in the Ukrainian conflict and extremely limited research touches upon the issue. There is a hypothesis that IED events were not mainly focused on killing but rather on striking terror and sowing chaos among the local populace to persuade it to withdraw its support for the Ukrainian government. This article presents an analysis of IEDs as a unique weapon, the possible intensions behind their occurrence in Ukraine at a particular point in time, and the methods of identifying IED use in Ukraine based on the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) and the authors' database (TAD). Both the imprecision and uncertainty relative to GTD’s classification were discussed, as it served only as the starting point for data evaluation, yielding informative results, although containing little information related to the IEDs directly.

On April 13, 2021, President Biden announced that the United States would be withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan, indicating a shift in American foreign policy in the Middle East. Saints at War: The Gulf War, Afghanistan, and Iraq is, therefore, a timely publication recording the contributions of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Gulf War, Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, and Operation Iraqi Freedom. The volume is the next installment in the Saints at War series, a project dedicated to archiving the military experiences of Mormon service members.The structure of the book lends itself to undergraduate student instruction as well as the military history enthusiast. Each of the three sections is introduced by a timeline chronicling developments in a particular conflict alongside “Church and world events.” The colocation of information supports one of the major themes of Saints at War, the evolution of Church organization in dynamic combat situations. Following the timelines are brief “overviews” addressing the origins of a conflict and the LDS Church's status in the countries involved. However, the bulk of each chapter is comprised of photographs and narratives of service members, service member families, civilian contractors, and religious leaders impacted by the wars in question.There are seventy-five accounts included. They overwhelmingly reflect a male, active-duty army combat arms officer's perspective. The editor, Kenneth Alford, does not reveal the methodology for contributor selection, and the reader is left wondering whether this focus is purposeful or accidental. Combat arms specialties include infantry, armor, combat aviation, air defense artillery, combat engineers, special forces, and field artillery. While these branches are central to any war fought by the United States military, the focus upon them obscures the role of combat service and combat service support occupational specialties—the only positions that were, up until 2015, open to women. There are seven female contributors to Saints at War, only two of which are soldiers. The remaining five are the widows of Latter-day Saints killed in combat, an artist who commemorates the deaths of veterans in portraiture, and civilians who served alongside spouses employed in war zones. The focus on the spousal relationship as a part of these women's wartime experiences adds an important perspective but also replicates the “separate spheres” mentality that pervades many military histories in which women's place in war is detached from actual fighting. Three themes repeatedly occur in the narratives of combat experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan: the importance of priesthood organization to the maintenance of spirituality in a combat zone, the protection and comfort offered by personal revelation, and the parallels soldiers drew from the Book of Mormon and twenty-first-century conflicts.In Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, the LDS Church had yet to create an infrastructure that could account for, track, and organize deployed service members in the region. It “operated primarily as several separate service member groups and individuals” (8). The situation in Afghanistan would begin in a similarly chaotic manner, with service members called to be group leaders by their home stake presidents, leading in some instances to overlapping realms of responsibility in the war zone. This changed in 2006 when Eugene Wikle was called as the senior service member group leader for the entire country. The Kabul Afghanistan Military District was organized in 2008, complete with a Relief Society, with civilian Carol Thompson called as the first woman district Relief Society president in a war zone. Many of the accounts included are those of the group leaders Wikle set apart, and they tell the unfolding of a more organized Church hierarchy spread over hundreds of miles and bound by a common purpose and email. Of particular spiritual importance to many of the veterans included in the volume was the 2009 district conference comprising talks from Salt Lake City and combat zone leaders that was disseminated via DVD. The lessons learned in Afghanistan were applied in Iraq, and the Baghdad Iraq Military District was formed in 2009. While Saints at War focuses heavily on the technicalities of Church organization in the region, it does so with a spiritual purpose. Soldiers, airmen, and marines within a district are empowered with priesthood keys that are not present in service member groups. The importance of priesthood keys is related in the story of “Brother Abraham,” identified as the “first Afghan member of the Church to reside in his native country” (153).The World War II adage “there are no atheists in fox holes” was also true for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many soldiers in the volume relay instances in which their example encouraged their compatriots to study the scriptures, hold ecumenical services together, and care for one another. Also numerous were the instances in which soldiers credited personal revelation with preserving an individual's or a unit's safety. This was especially true regarding the imminent danger IEDs (improvised explosive devices) posed to the convoys necessary to sustain a large-scale, long-term military presence. Photographs of damaged Humvees and armored vehicles paralleled recollections of miraculous escapes. However, not every soldier's life was spared, and the most poignant recollections in Saints at War were written by Jenny Taylor and Rikka Jacobsen, widows of the conflicts.Though the anthology comes close to orientalism in its depictions of an unchanged Afghanistan and Iraq, much of this projection of timelessness is due to service members’ comparisons of modern warfare to events in the Book of Mormon. Soldiers processed the lives they were required to take, the suffering they witnessed, and the constant danger to themselves and those in their charge through their internalization of the actions of Helaman, Captain Moroni, and the “stripling warriors.” For example, special forces operator Colby Jenkins commented, “my knowledge of the Book of Mormon, in particular, paid tremendous dividends during my deployment. It helped me to better understand the nature of the enemy we faced. The evils the AQAM did to the Afghan people and the manner in which they lived and fought often paralleled the Book of Mormon's Gadianton robbers” (101). Kenneth Alford is to be commended for incorporating narratives that depict modern soldiering as a complex mixture of serving local peoples and fighting an enemy Mormon soldiers humanized, while overcoming feelings of guilt at harming others and surviving the loss of comrades. Much of this complexity is revealed in the moments in which veterans render themselves vulnerable to the reader. These reflections temper the potential of the projection of a sanitized and idealized Mormon masculinity achieved through combat service.Saints at War is an important contribution to the growing field of Mormon military history and the larger field of military history struggling to address the methodological challenges of preserving the past in an electronically obsessed present. The decline of letter writing and the increase of instant communications like email and cell phones have altered the remnants left behind by veterans. Unarchived inboxes endanger the preservation of military histories. Kenneth Alford demonstrates how such accounts can be written while including the perspectives of Church leaders, civilian contractors, and homefront voices, showing the pervasive impact wars have on nations beyond the battlefield.

The development of reliable techniques for the safe neutralization of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) is an active field of research. Recently, innovative approaches for the neutralization of IEDs were developed and tested within the FP7 project ENCOUNTER (“Explosive Neutralisation and Mitigation Countermeasures for IEDs in Urban/Civil Environment”) and were compared to existing, established technologies. Here, the ENCOUNTER project is presented with a special focus on the neutralization of IEDs by high-power lasers. The working principle of the application of high-power lasers for the neutralization of explosive devices is based on thermal effects. Heating of the IEDs main charge may occur either by direct irradiation of the explosive material or by heat transfer through the main charge’s confinement. The aim of the application of the laser is to achieve a low order burning reaction of the explosive charge and thus a controlled neutralization of the IED. Since laser beams allow for the directed transport of energy, this technique can be applied over long stand-off distances and has thus potential for an increase of the safety of clearing forces and population in the case of terroristic attacks in a civilian environment. Within the ENCOUNTER project, a laboratory environment has been set up which allows for the irradiation of IEDs with a laser power of up to 10 kW. Experiments have been carried out on a broad spectrum of different types of IEDs. The processes during neutralization were studied in detail with high-speed diagnostics. On the basis of these experimental data, the safety and the reliability of the application of the laser was analyzed, and recommendations to end users were given. In addition to the results of the ENCOUNTER project, approaches for the numerical simulation of the neutralization of IEDs are discussed.

With the changing conditions of terrorism, particularly in urban areas, high-energy explosive devices such as improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and projectile missiles (PMs) are frequently used. Traumas caused by these devices particularly affect the maxillofacial region and typically lead to otologic problems. In this study, we aimed to evaluate otologic complaints, otoscopic and auricular examinations, and tuning-fork tests of patients who were exposed to high-energy blast-related injuries and perform a comparison between trauma patients injured by IEDs and PMs. The medical data of patients admitted to an operational field hospital emergency room with injuries related to highenergy explosive devices such as IEDs and PMs between July 27, 2015 and July 22, 2016 was reviewed. The hearing impairment, tinnitus, otologic examination, auricular region examination, and tuning-fork tests of all patients were evaluated. The otologic evaluation, records of the patients (n=86) were evaluated using a scoring system established by the authors. The patients were categorized into two groups according to the device causing the injury: IEDs in group I and PMs in group II. A total of 241 combatants were injured by high-energy explosive devices. All patients were male with a mean age of 30.2 years (range, 20-54). Of these, 86 had hearing impairments that were detected by tuning-fork tests. Of those, 50 were injured by IEDs and 36 by PMs. Of the 86 patients, 18 had traumatic tympanic membrane perforation, and of those, 6 patients were injured by IEDs and 12 by PMs. Further, 68 of the 86 patients had sensorineural hearing loss, and of those, 44 were injured by IEDs and 24 by PMs. There was a statistically significant difference between the IED and PM groups according to otologic evaluation score (p=0.044). This study demonstrates that PMs can have a large impact on the human ear and may cause more severe otologic manifestations among combatants than those caused by IEDs. The early and accurate evaluation of patients exposed to high-energy explosive devices in an operational field is important for the appropriate management of these patients.

SummaryBackgroundThe Afghan military theatre is specifically marked by guerilla operations and massive use of IEDs (improvised explosive devices) that pose new types of threats for their victims. At the same time, the relevant literature contains only a single, fragmentary analysis on injuries suffered by soldiers serving in the Afghan mission.Material/MethodsThis is a review of medical reports of the Polish Military Contingent deployed within Operation Enduring Freedom, from 1 January 2010 to 31 December 2011; the analysis includes all cases of combat and non-combat injuries in terms of their causes.ResultsIn the period under analysis, 380 Polish soldiers were reported injured; 87.1% of cases were combat and 12.9% non-combat injuries. The structure of injuries caused as a result of IED explosions was dominated by multiple limb injuries, associated most frequently with severe body cavities/spine injuries. In the case of other incidents, both combat and non-combat, the predominant consequences were single and, most commonly, less severe injuries. The average number of injuries suffered from IED attacks (3.37) was significantly higher than the number of injuries from other attacks (1.16), and higher than the number of non-combat injuries (1.43).ConclusionsIED attacks pose a serious medical problem, considering their high number and the severity of injuries they cause.

Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) have injured and killed numerous soldiers and civilians as a consequence of military operations in the Middle East. With gaps in existing technologies, the US military required devices for quickly addressing deadly IEDs without harming military personnel or inflicting severe damage to the environment. In response to this need, Sandia developed Stingray, a clear, plastic handheld device to quickly and safely disable threatening IEDs. Stingray is designed to be used in two configurations: a coherent water blade for cutting operations and as a water slug for general device disruption. Prior to disabling an IED, Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) technicians will x-ray the target using tools such as Sandia's X-ray Toolkit (XTK) to determine which function operators should use to dismantle the IED. For example, if the operator knows exactly which wires to cut, they can use the precision water blade. If the operator wants to create a general disruption, they can use the water slug function.

Ocular biomechanics due to ground blast reinforcement

Systematic study for DNA recovery and profiling from common IED substrates: From laboratory to casework

Motivated by experiences of coalition military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, we analyze the allocation of route clearance teams (RCTs) to search for and neutralize improvised explosive devices (IEDs) on roadways traveled by military convoys. We model the interaction of a single RCT and a single convoy operating over a given roadway. Our goal is to reduce IED risk by improving coordination between the RCT and the convoy. We treat the distribution of IEDs along the road prior to the passage of the RCT as a non-homogeneous Poisson process. The RCT finds and clears IEDs according to a Bernoulli process. Enemy forces may emplace (reseed) additional IEDs in the temporal gap between the RCT clearance sweep and the arrival of the convoy. IED risk is defined as the expected number of IEDs encountered by the convoy. We identify certain characteristics of optimal RCT schedules including: the shape of the IED intensity function and the speed of reseeding substantially dictate the RCT schedule that minimizes IED risk; the more rapid the IED reseeding, the more critical is conformance to the optimal RCT schedule; an RCT having inferior detection probability, by employing superior scheduling can sometimes reduce convoy risk more than a less well scheduled RCT with superior detection probability; a discretized highway version of the problem can be efficiently optimized. We also briefly discuss applications of this model to the more complex problem of allocating several RCTs to protect a number of convoys scheduled to travel on a network of highways.

An improvised explosive device (IED) is a bomb constructed from unknown materials, often concealed, such as inside an innocuous container, and deployed in unconventional ways resulting in a potentially deadly weapon. Public safety personnel such as Explosive Disposal Units (EDUs), are trained in the safe handling of explosives and the threats posed by IEDs. One method of neutralizing a suspect IED is to use water fired from a high-powered dispersion weapon commonly known as a disrupter cannon. Our research proposes an algorithm for developing an IED neutralization simulation that can emulate real-world physical effects of the successful neutralization of an IED without danger to the public or first responders. This algorithm includes 6 methodologies with the goal of providing EDU with additional information on the potential physical dispersion of the components of an IED and any major points of impact (splatter) and possible actionable intelligence on the pose and direction of a disrupter cannon for a successful neutralization of an IED. We have developed a prototype simulation based on this algorithm and evaluated the simulation with an appropriate real-world disrupter and compared the real-world splatter to our simulation’s splatter. We argue systems developed with our algorithm may provide relevant information directly from the simulation and can be accurately used to analyze particle dispersion for the purposes of augmenting EDU IED neutralization processes.

An improvised explosive device (IED) is a bomb constructed from unknown materials, often concealed, such as inside an innocuous container, and deployed in unconventional ways resulting in a potentially deadly weapon. Public safety personnel such as Explosive Disposal Units (EDUs), are trained in the safe handling of explosives and the threats posed by IEDs. One method of neutralizing a suspect IED is to use water fired from a high-powered dispersion weapon commonly known as a disrupter cannon. Our research proposes an algorithm for developing an IED neutralization simulation that can emulate real-world physical effects of the successful neutralization of an IED without danger to the public or first responders. This algorithm includes 6 methodologies with the goal of providing EDU with additional information on the potential physical dispersion of the components of an IED and any major points of impact (splatter) and possible actionable intelligence on the pose and direction of a disrupter cannon for a successful neutralization of an IED. We have developed a prototype simulation based on this algorithm and evaluated the simulation with an appropriate real-world disrupter and compared the real-world splatter to our simulation’s splatter. We argue systems developed with our algorithm may provide relevant information directly from the simulation and can be accurately used to analyze particle dispersion for the purposes of augmenting EDU IED neutralization processes.

This work deals with the study of changes in the spectrum of X-ray radiation produced by mobile generators, when passing through various metallic filters. The main goal is to provide an overview of the effect of these materials on the radiation spectrum, which is crucial for applications in the field of IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) detection and other security measures. The results will be used serve as study material for students dealing with this issue addressing this topic. In the detection of suspicious objects or IEDs, X-ray systems play a key role. In practice, however, IEDs can also be found equipped with sensors that react to X-ray radiation, and single pulse is often enough to initiate an unwanted detonation of an explosive device. For this reason, filters made of various metals are used in portable X- ray systems, which reduce the probability of activation of the IEDs sensor. The filters are installed directly in front of the X-ray generator. The aim of our work was to determine the effect of filtration with various materials on the spectrum and to determine the extent of this effect on the function of IEDs switches. There is an urgent need to determine what number of photons for specific energies is safe for X-ray sensitive sensors that could be used in IEDs. It is therefore necessary to conduct a professional study that would allow to investigate the issue more thoroughly based on scientific data. Using High-Purity Germanium (HPGe) gamma spectrometer GC2018 (CANBERRA), we measured the X-ray spectra of continuous portable X-ray source ECO 200DS, transmitted through filters made of Al, Ti, Brass, Cu, Zr, Pb, and W of different thicknesses. The results show that heavier and thicker filters effectively reduce low-energy X-rays, thereby “hardening” the spectrum and lowering total radiation intensity. Lead and tungsten filters were found to be most effective in preventing the triggering of X-ray sensitive sensors commonly used in improvised explosive devices (IEDs), although at the cost of reduced image resolution. The best results with regard to the quality of the captured image were achieved by using a 2 mm thick Cu filter, or a 0.5 mm thick Pb filter at a source-detector distance of approximately 2 m. Below the mentioned filter thicknesses, some sensors were already triggered occasionally.