We're used to thinking of Iraq as the epicenter for jury-rigged bombs. And most of the world's IEDs, or improvised explosive devices, do go off there. But the rest of the planet's bomb-makers are catching up, quick.
"There are 200 to 300 improvised explosive attacks each month outside
Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a report obtained by USA Today. "The IED threat outside Iraq and Afghanistan increased steadily in 2006
and 2007 and is on a pace to exceed those numbers in 2008, said Irene
Smith, a spokeswoman for the Pentagon's Joint IED Defeat Organization
(JIEDDO)." About 600 IEDs explode each month in Iraq, the paper adds, and another sixty or so in Afghanistan.
This isn't terribly surprising, of course. Long before the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan got started, bomb-makers in Colombia and Northern Ireland had perfected the terrible art of the improvised explosive. And the bombers continue to swap tactics and techniques, around the world -- even coming up with a common IED design. Infrared triggers, first used by the Irish Republican Army, have made their way into the hands of FARC guerrillas in Colombia, Basque separatists in Spain, Palestinian militants... and, of course, Iraqi insurgents.
