“The global proliferation of IEDs and associated technology is pervasive,” Barbero says. IEDs increasingly a U.S. threat

Roadside bombs have been the U.S. military’s worst enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, a top general is warning that our enemies are increasingly trying to use IEDs in the United States.

“The global proliferation of IEDs and associated technology is pervasive and continues to threaten U.S. interests at home and abroad,” Lt. Gen. Michael Barbero, head of the military’s Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, told a congressional hearing on Thursday.


Barbero sounded the alarm before a partially closed hearing of a subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee titled, “Securing Ammonium Nitrate: Using Lessons Learned in Afghanistan to Protect the Homeland from IEDs.”

In prepared testimony beforehand, Barbero called the threat “one of the enduring operational and domestic security challenges for the foreseeable future.”

“The United States witnessed firsthand just how deadly ammonium nitrate can be in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that claimed the lives of 168 American citizens,” he said.

And since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the threat of homemade bombs being used against targets in the United States has only become more serious.

“Since 2007, IED incidents outside of Iraq and Afghanistan have increased to more than 500 IED events per month, with Colombia having the greatest number of IED events followed by Pakistan, India, the United States and Syria, which recently moved into the top five,” Barbero testified. “Since January 2011, there have been more than 10,000 global IED events occurring in 112 countries, executed by more than 40 regional and transnational threat networks.”

Using IEDs to try to attack targets in the U.S. is something many law enforcement officials know all too well.

“The threat is indeed real. IED attacks been attempted multiple times in New York City already,” Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne told POLITICO.

He pointed to the case of Jose Pimentel, a Muslim convert and al Qaeda operative who followed instructions from the al Qaeda magazine “Inspire” to build IEDs that he planned to detonate in New York City and against U.S. troops returning home to New York from Iraq and Afghanistan. “The would-be Times Square car bomber [in 2010] also relied on a large IED, which, thankfully, failed to detonate,” Browne said.

In his testimony before Congress, Barbero pointed out that it’s not difficult to make these crude, but deadly, weapons.

“Today’s IEDs are relatively simple, low-tech devices, which routinely use command wire, pressure plates, or radio-controlled triggers,” he said. “Many readily available components such as cell phones, agricultural fertilizers and simple electronic transmitters and receivers have legitimate commercial uses, but are easily and increasingly adapted for illicit purposes in manufacturing IEDs.”

And that’s what makes it hard to prevent these kinds of attacks, since “the dual-use nature of IED components poses unique challenges in our ability to regulate and limit terrorist access to IED precursors and trigger components,” he said.

Rep. Dan Lungren (R-Calif.), chairman of the Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection and Security Technologies Subcommittee, said in prepared testimony that law enforcement agencies across the country are working together to thwart any attempted attacks on U.S. soil.

“I’m a strong believer that the best defense against terrorist acts, including IEDs, is good intelligence,” Lungren said. “Intelligence is always more effective when shared with the agencies responsible for our counter-IED efforts. This inter-agency coordination will help us provide the strongest response to the homeland IED threat.”