Bombs Used by Todays Enemy (IED)

Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) are the most common threat in today’s war in Iraq or Afghanistan. They are the most feared by our troops and allied forces because they are hard to detect and they are very deadly. In this article I hope to educate you a little bit on the types and deployment of IEDs used against US troops.

There are many different types of IEDs out there so I’m only going to cover the most common used. Besides, most of the types of IEDs out there are just variations of the main types I’m going to talk about.

VBIED (car bomb)

The VBIED is a vehicle born improvised explosive device. Pretty much what this means is someone loaded a car up with a lot of explosive making the entire vehicle a bomb. With VBIEDs they are usually made so that the driver, commonly known as the suicide bomber, can drive the car into a crowd of people, controlled entry point, or our up armored vehicles and blow them up. This is a very dangerous form of IED because they control where the bomb goes and it is usually pretty big.

Suicide Vest

A suicide vest is a jest, jacket, or some sort of wearable item packed full of explosives. The person wearing this can walk right up to whatever he wants to blow up and hit the trigger of the bomb causing serious damage to whatever he is near.

Roadside IED

Roadside IED is pretty self-explanatory to an extent. Yes it is a bomb buried or hidden on or next to a road in order to blow up passing vehicles or people walking down the road. These are the most common used in today’s war. These IEDs don’t necessarily have to be on a road though. They can be placed anywhere the enemy thinks our troops or whomever they intend to blow up will walk.

All of these IEDs are not easy to find. The enemy does a very good job trying to hide them from us. From years of trying to perfect hiding and employing IEDs they have gotten pretty good at it. You can see this by reading the military deaths in combat because most will be from explosion. What you probly don’t hear are all the troops losing a leg or an arm or a combination of the two on a regular basis due to IEDs. They are very serious things and should not be taken lightly.

I have been in the Marines for a little over 4 years now and have been on a few deployments including combat ones. I have personally been blown up (no injuries) on foot and in a vehicle. I have responded to IED attacks and also aided in finding and destroying them. I have gone through endless hours of training on the topic and can probably talk your ear off about it. I also feel like todays America is very uneducated about the war their troops are fighting and I hope to change that a little at a time.