In recent wars, improvised explosive devices (IED) were a commonly used weapon. Often the person putting it in the ground was not the person who constructed it. The emplacer was usually someone just trying to earn some money. The builders were the ones with the most talent.

You can eliminate emplacers fairly easily, but there will be more. The builders; however, are a bit more rare. Builders develop their own style based on how they learned, materials available, and general evolution of their craft over time. They develop a modus operandi.

Emplacers develop a modus operandi too, but they might be harder to track due to high turnover (short life span). When an IED is found prior to being triggered, a few decisions can be made depending on the maturity, available resources, and operational constraints.

Often IEDs are found by security patrols consisting of infantry and possibly engineers. The patrol could choose to go around it, but often the decision is to form a security perimeter or “cordon” and deal with it. They have options. An engineer could feasibly blow it in place.

The infantrymen and engineers may personally want to just detonate it however they can so they can continue their operation—getting back to work. There’s risk associated with doing so. Instead, it’s often a better choice to contact explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) teams.

EOD is a specialized capability that transcends the limitations of the engineers. They are not only familiar with advanced techniques such as anti-tampering devices designed to kill whoever tries to disarm them, but they become intimately familiar with the enemy modus operandi.

EOD also is tied in with other specialists that can track, cluster, and attribute attacks over time. THESE IEDs in THIS area are different from THOSE IEDs in THAT area. THIS builder has a unique signature that involves using THESE materials in THIS way. You begin to hunt them.

Back in infantry world, the intelligence derived from all sources, to include what’s being learned about the IED construction and employment techniques makes everyone better. Infantry tactics change to meet the threat—and conversely, enemy tactics shift to counter-the-counter.

This back and forth will continue until the threat is eliminated. The infantry units do their best with what they learn from their training, lessons learned, personal experience, patrol debriefs, and intelligence. Other elements are working to directly target the IED networks.

While the infantry is playing a game of whack-a-mole, these other elements are using multidisciplinary approaches to directly dismantle the IED networks. However, they ARE often dependent on the infantry requesting support instead of just blowing the IED in place.

IED builders may have overlaps with others in the region, especially if they share a common background/training/supply chain. However, over time they may evolve. There are some things that make their IEDs unique, and it takes specialists to begin to identify these.

Over time, what was one to a few explosives in the ground—which feasibly could have just been blown up where they lay—turns into a corpus of intelligence on the enemies modus operandi. Not just how they do what they do, but information to target the enemy.

THIS builder uses THIS material that can only be bought in THIS area. Intelligence—task Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance (ISR) assets to this Naned Area of Interest (NAI). HUMINT—go recruit a source with placement and access to THAT area. You get the idea.

Interrogating IEDs is incredibly dangerous work. It’s often more safe to blow them in place instead of trying to disarm and investigate. Doing so also slows operations down for everyone involved, at least initially. Why do it then? Why investigate instead of just blowing it away?

The answer is because the information you learn from it matters. The techniques employed by the builders and emplacers matter to those who have to patrol these grounds every day wondering if their next step will kill them and their friends or alter their life forever.

At the lowest level (patrolling the streets conducting security operations) the most interesting information is the modus operandi of the enemy cell. That’s because it directly impacts them, and they aren’t really equipped to do targeting themselves. They don’t care who did it.

Specialists continue to cluster the IED incidents by areas of operation and modus operandi. Forensics help identify unique materials used, and also biometrics. Eventually, over time, a wealth of information is learned and helps counteract enemy efforts. It’s still a tug-o-war.

Remember, as long as the enemy decides to fight, you’re engaged in a constant “cat and mouse” game—a counter to the counter, you adapt to an existing tactic, and the enemy adjusts to circumvent your countermeasure. You pick a stand-off distance, the enemy changes their offset.

The specialists get break! While performing forensics, they identify biometrics on one of the components of the IED in such a spot that it could only be the builder—not the emplacer. This biometrics sample goes into a repository available across the whole government.

This biometric sample isn’t associated with a name—a person—but it was found on an IED that was clustered with ones that have spanned a year in the area, and have killed a few troops. Yet still, absent a person, you’re left with an anonymous biometric profile. IEDs still planted.

A SOF unit hits a house one day, interrogations begin on site, and everyone’s biometrics are collected. There’s a match! They never get matches, and they’re sick of checking because the portable equipment sucks, but because they’re disciplined, she checked, they have a jackpot.

They detain everyone, and exfil. During interrogation, the builder provides a wealth of information about the network to include facilitators, financiers, foreign connections, trainers, etc. It’s a gold mine. Also, IED operations cease in the area for a few months.

The infantry, engineers, etc didn’t personally care the names of the people trying to kill them. Sure, if they had the resources maybe they’d be interested, but they are most concerned with just staying alive and continuing the mission. Who did it was irrelevant in their minds.

Yet still, who did it absolutely did matter, and people accepted great physical risk to investigate and interrogate IEDs in order to not just learn the techniques of the enemy, but to determine who they are and to eliminate them. It takes time, but attribution matters. /Thread

@threader_app unroll please.