IED Materials Traced to Commercial Sources

The materials terrorist fighters use to build improvised explosive devices (IEDs) largely are available on the open market, an independent research group concluded. “For the most part, IED components are commercial goods that are not subject to government export licenses and whose transfer is far less scrutinized and regulated than the transfer of weapons,” the group, Conflict Armament Research, stated in a February white paper. The group drew its conclusions based upon 20 months of research conducted in Iraq and Syria. Companies from 51 countries, including Brazil, Turkey, China, Russia, Iraq and the Netherlands among them, were found to have supplied “chemical precursors” used in building IEDs, the group concluded. The European Union funded the research project.