IMPROVISED EXPLOSIVE DEVICE (IED)

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Context

• Kerala Police confirmed that an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) was used in the multiple blasts that took place at a convention center of a Christian religious group in Kalamassery in Kochi.

Improvised explosive device (IED)

• An improvised explosive device (IED) is a bomb constructed and deployed in ways other than in conventional military action.
• It may be constructed of conventional military explosives, such as an artillery shell, attached to a detonating mechanism. IEDs are commonly used as roadside bombs or homemade bombs.
• It is improvised by incorporating destructive, lethal, noxious, pyrotechnic, or incendiary chemicals and designed to destroy or incapacitate personnel or vehicles.
• The term "IED" was coined by the British Army during the Northern Ireland conflict to refer to booby traps made by the IRA, and entered common use in the U.S. during the Iraq War.
• IEDs are generally utilized in terrorist operations or in asymmetric unconventional warfare or urban warfare by insurgent guerrillas or commando forces in a theatre of operations.