IED

Improving Point of Injury Trauma Care for IED Victims

Katie Lazaro — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 09:40:57 +0000

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Actors and Contexts

Controls and Regulations

Weapons and Technologies

November 2024

Improving Point of Injury Trauma Care for IED Victims

Hannah Wild and Paul Amoroso

Publications

Briefing Paper

English

Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) have become a key tool in asymmetric warfare, employed in the pursuit of many objectives, including destabilization of the state and governing authorities, exertion of control and influence, and creation of fear in a population. More than 80 per cent of civilian IED casualties occur in civilian spaces, and civilians are deliberately targeted, including vulnerable groups such as children. As the proportion of civilian casualties from IEDs continues to increase and considering that an estimated 40 per cent of explosive ordnance casualties do not survive their injuries, an increased emphasis on emergency casualty care is necessary to decrease preventable death and disability among victims.

Improving Point of Injury Trauma Care for IED Victims—a new Briefing Paper from the Small Arms Survey’s Pathway to a Regional C-IED Strategy in West Africa—examines the challenges facing the inclusion of emergency care as a priority within victim assistance and counter-improvised explosive devices (C-IED) strategies, and presents the need for a comprehensive, whole-of-society approach to C-IED, which supports emergency care for civilian IED victims in low-resource settings.

English

Keywords: IED West Africa C-IED

Out of Control: The Trafficking of Improvised Explosive Device Components and Commercial Explosives in West Africa

Lionel Kosirnik — Fri, 17 Nov 2023 11:54:53 +0000

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Illicit Trafficking

November 2023

Out of Control: The Trafficking of Improvised Explosive Device Components and Commercial Explosives in West Africa

the Small Arms Survey

Publications

Report

English

Français

The use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in West Africa expanded dramatically over the last decade. IED-building networks have established material and training links across conflict areas in West and Central Africa, and their designs have remained constant and inexpensive throughout the region—helping to increase their use in attacks against domestic and international security forces, UN peacekeepers, and civilians.

Out of Control: The Trafficking of Improvised Explosive Device Components and Commercial Explosives in West Africa—a new report from the Small Arms Survey’s Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) in West Africa project—analyses data from more than 2,200 IED-related incidents between March 2013 and September 2022, and stresses the importance of coordinated regional approaches in eliminating illegal IED use in West and Central Africa.

ENGLISH

FRANCAIS

Summary in Arabic

Keywords: IED PMFs

A Primer: IEDs in the Sahel and West Africa

Lionel Kosirnik — Thu, 02 Dec 2021 13:36:04 +0000

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Illicit Trafficking

Weapons and Technologies

December 2021

A Primer: IEDs in the Sahel and West Africa

Elodie Hainard and David Lochhead

Blog

English

Français

'Agence France Presse estimates that in Burkina Faso alone, improvised explosive devices (IEDs) have killed nearly 300 civilians and soldiers since 2018. The Small Arms Survey documents the trafficking of IED components in the Sahel and West Africa, having undertaken fieldwork in Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, and Niger, to date. By considering the regional dimensions of the trafficking in question, the aim is to be able to establish an evidence base for developing a regional response...'

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Keywords: IED

Countering Improvised Explosive Devices (Research Note 46)

Anonymous — Wed, 25 Nov 2020 04:15:56 +0000

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Controls and Regulations

Stockpiles and Holdings

October 2014

Countering Improvised Explosive Devices (Research Note 46)

Claudia Seymour

Publications

Research Note

English

Improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which are increasingly used by insurgents, have devastating effects on government forces and civilians. Between 2011 and 2013, more than 4,300 IED events in 66 countries resulted in an estimated 65,400 casualties, the vast majority of them civilian.

Four countries—Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Syria—bear an especially high incidence of IED attacks, accounting for a total of more than 3,300 incidents and more than 51,000 casualties during that period.

The proliferation of these weapons has been fuelled by how easy it is to access components and how low-tech the assembly requirements are. Although IEDs are often constructed from products that are commercially available and relatively inexpensive, the main charges and boosters of the devices are frequently sourced from conventional ammunition, such as artillery shells and mortar bombs.

Countering Improvised Explosive Devices, a Small Arms Survey Research Note, argues that effective stockpile management of conventional munitions is crucial to curbing the use of stockpile-derived materials in IED fabrication.

The Research Note describes some international efforts to counter the proliferation of IEDs. Such efforts include the improved sharing of forensic information on IED events to enhance awareness of the threat and to inform national and international counter-IED decision-making.

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Keywords: IED

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SAS-Research-Note-46.pdf