Upstream IED Prevention
Countering the illicit proliferation and diversion of materials used in the production of improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
Upstream IED Prevention
A wide range of materials can be used to create improvised explosive devices (IEDs), including many commercially available products. The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has repeatedly stressed the urgent need to prevent illicit actors from obtaining and using materials to produce IEDs, detailing in a resolution passed in December 2020 for example – a range of both upstream and downstream measures to tackle IEDs, such as strengthening the management of national ammunition stockpiles to prevent diversion and increasing prevention efforts to combat illicit procurement of IED components, explosives, and materials.
Measures that can be taken to counter the IED threa t can be broadly classified as being either upstream or downstream. Upstream measures are those that are focused on prevention. They include anything from the development of national policies, legislation, and technical standards to conducting intelligence-led counter-IED operations. Collectively, these measures are focused on stopping illicit actors from acquiring IED components. Downstream measures, by contrast, are responsive. They are introduced and implemented after an IED event and primarily relate to exploitation of IEDs and of IED scenes, development of technical countermeasures, and criminal justice processes. Conflict Armament Research (CAR) investigators have been working to document and trace electronic components, military-grade explosives and homemade explosive (HME) precursor materials that can be used to create IEDs. This work has been supported by the European Commission. Since 2018, investigators have documented and traced IED-related materials in a number of conflict-affected locations including Afghanistan, Bahrain, Burkina Faso, Iraq, Mali, Niger, Syria, and Yemen. CAR’s investigations generate evidence on the diversion of materials that can be used to create IEDs to support governments and the private sector in effectively preventing illicit actors from accessing IED components and precursors.
Countries where CAR investigators have documented and traced IED components and precursor material.
In December 2021, CAR – in cooperation with the Government of Japan – held an online event to discuss ways to better identify and address the risks of diversion of IED materials. All quotes and videos used in this publication are from this event – ' Upstream IED Prevention '. The expert panellists were:
- Daniel Golston, Policy Analyst and the Chair of Emerging Threats and Critical Infrastructure Protection Working Group of the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Compact (INTERPOL);
- Mike Lewis, Head of Enhanced Investigations (CAR);
- Maiko Takeuchi, Consulting Fellow (Research Institute of Economy, Trade, and Industry, REITI); and
- Leonard Tettey, National Small Arms and Light Weapons Project Coordinator (Republic of Ghana);
Following the discussion in this December 2021 event of what measures can be taken to prevent and address the acquisition of IED-related materials, this publication presents case studies from CAR’s investigations that demonstrate examples of upstream IED prevention in action. It highlights the importance of field documentation, analysis, and tracing to provide governments, manufacturers, and distributors with verified evidence on patterns of illicit production and procurement of IED materials.
This report was produced with the support of the Government of Japan. Research for the case studies used in this report has been conducted with the financial assistance of the European Union, the Government of Germany, and the European Union’s Internal Security Fund – Police.
Upstream IED Prevention (December 2021)
"Improvised explosive devices represent one of the primary weapons of choice of illegal armed groups, terrorists, and other illicit actors. The use of IEDs has affected over 50 countries and has resulted in thousands of casualties, both civilian and military [...] Owing to the evolving nature of the material acquisition, IED production, as well as their means of delivery by illicit actors, great challenges remain for States to effectively prevent and deter IED proliferation and use."
Tracing IED materials
CAR traces large quantities of commercial products and dual-use materiel that have been recovered from armed actors in conflict zones. Many of these items are not subject to export controls and fall well outside of the scope of arms control instruments. These products serve legitimate commercial markets but may be used in the development of IEDs without the knowledge of the parties involved in the transfer chains. Tracing these products when they have been found in the hands of terrorists and other unauthorised users helps to alert companies and governments to their misuse by hostile parties
Tracing cooperation: identifying counterfeit components
In 2017 and 2018, a CAR field investigation team deployed to the Kingdom of Bahrain to document IED materiel that Bahraini national security forces had recovered in the country between 2013 and 2018.
2013 marked a significant change in the sophistication of weapons and related materiel available to militant factions in Bahrain. The groups had initially—during violent confrontations in 2011 and 2012—targeted Bahraini security forces with crude, domestically manufactured IEDs and improvised weapons.
From 2013 onwards, however, Bahraini security forces began to interdict vessels in Bahrain’s territorial waters whose cargoes included pre-configured IED components mixed with conventional military weapons.
The IED-related material that CAR documented in Bahrain included:
- Military-grade, secondary high-explosives, manufactured in Iran (top-left);
- Ammonium nitrate and granular urea, manufactured in Bahrain (top-right);
- Electronic components, including semi-conductors and receivers (bottom-left);
- Enclosure boxes (used to protect electronics), manufactured by a company headquartered in China (bottom-right).
Among this material, CAR documented a general voltage regulator – a system designed to automatically manage a consistent voltage in a circuit. Voltage regulators are used in a wide range of electronic products and industrial applications.
CAR documented this regulator in Manama, Bahrain on 23 July 2017. It was part of a radio-controlled IED (RCIED) component that was seized by Bahraini security forces from a militant group in the country.
CAR traced the regulator with the manufacturer, STMicroelectronics (STM). On 18 August 2017, STM responded promptly to CAR to confirm that they had manufactured the LM78M05 general voltage regulator that CAR documented in Bahrain and that the regulator had been assembled in November 2013 in China and sold to different distributors in China, Hong Kong, and South Korea.
The following year, on 20 April 2018, CAR documented a second STM general voltage regulator from an RCIED receiver board seized in Bahrain during operations against the Al Ashtar Brigades and Bahraini Hezbollah militants between August 2017 and February 2018.
When CAR traced this item with STM in September 2019, STM were able to inform CAR that the item was in fact counterfeit.
As this map shows, CAR field investigators have previously documented 22 counterfeit STM-labelled transistors in Iraq that Islamic State (IS) forces had used in the construction of IEDs. All of these items bore alphanumeric codes indicating that they were manufactured in 2013.
In addition, CAR has documented four authentic and three counterfeit STM electronic components in Yemen. All three counterfeit voltage regulators share the same product number and were recovered over several years from three different non-state groups operating in Yemen.
In July 2017, CAR documented an STM-labelled voltage regulator that Yemeni counterterrorism forces recovered in an Islamic State in Yemen IED in Aden. STM responded to a formal trace request issued by CAR on 31 January 2018 and confirmed that the component is counterfeit
The following year, CAR documented a second STM general voltage regulator that Saudi-led Arab coalition forces recovered from an Ansar Allah ‘Houthi’ IED on Yemen’s west coast. STM also confirmed this component to be counterfeit. The third regulator was captured in a cache or RCIED components held by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) forces in Shabwa Governorate. CAR traced this item with STM in 2020, who confirmed that it was also counterfeit.
The discovery of counterfeited components bearing similar marks and being used in IED construction by IS forces in Iraq, militants in Bahrain, and by Houthi and AQAP forces in Yemen is a potentially significant one for CAR’s counter-proliferation and counter-diversion investigations. Other items captured from militants in Bahrain have also originated in Iraq, suggesting that Iraq itself may be an important conduit for the flow of illicit IED materials into the Gulf. Tracing is proven to be a key factor in identifying the sources of such material , and the entities involved in the supply chain. CAR’s tracing of voltage regulators in this case helped to notify a major producer of commercial electronic components firstly that their products were being used in IED production by several militant groups in the Gulf, and secondly that their products were being actively counterfeited. It is often only because of investigations like this case that manufacturers and distributors of such products have been made aware of their potential uses in offensive operations.
"There is currently a patchwork of standards and regulations about how both marking and record keeping of key IED components and materials takes place [...] When people talk about upstream prevention, some of that basic standard setting work about the traceability and identifiability of these kinds of items is a core part of this puzzle."
How the tracing process with commercial manufacturers works: a clip from a presentation given by Mike Lewis, Head of Enhanced Investigations at CAR.
Explore CAR's reporting on tracing IED components: The IED Threat in Bahrain (December 2019), A Case for Tracing (December 2020), and Tracing the Supply of Components used in Islamic State IEDs (February 2018).
Investigating IED supply chains
CAR's investigative teams work to establish the long-range transnational supply chains behind the supply of IED materials, components, and sub-components. CAR's upstream prevention efforts focus on uncovering how these critical materials reach illicit armed actors, and uncovering the human, financial, and logistics networks behind their supply.
Islamic State procurement networks
Between 2015 and 2017, CAR field investigation teams documented more than a hundred drums of Chinese-manufactured leafing aluminium paste in Iraq.
These drums were found at six separate explosive production sites set up by Islamic State forces, located across central Iraq.
Each of the production sites was at least 70 km apart from the other, suggesting widespread dispersion of the product among IS facilities.
IS used aluminium paste to produce home-made explosives for IEDS.
CAR investigated the provenance and chain of custody for this aluminium paste – a civilian, commercial good that became an important chemical precursor for IS forces' production of IEDs.
All of the drums documented in Iraq had been manufactured by Hefei Sunrise Aluminium Pigments Co Ltd.
Hefei manufactured the paste within an eight-month production period between 9 June 2014 and 18 January 2015.
Hefei Sunrise is a Chinese company that produces aluminium powders, pigments and pastes for use in commercial products like paint. Hefei sells these products to its distributors around the world.
All of these drums (documented in Tal Afar in 2017)—and all the drums that CAR documented in Iraq—bore labels indicating that a single Istanbul-based chemical distributor had sold them.
There is no suggestion that this distributor was in any way complicit in supplying IS forces, or that it engaged in any other wrongdoing.
Before 2018, the Istanbul-based distributor did not record sales by lot or batch number. Following its engagement with CAR, the distributor stated that it had introduced batch-level sales tracking .
Looking at its list of customers that had purchased aluminium paste since 2013, the distributor noted one particular sale as unusual: a large order in late 2014 or early 2015 for six tonnes of aluminium paste, placed by a trader called Tevhid Bilişim, based in Şanlıurfa, some 50km from the Turkish border with Syria.
This map shows the chain of custody that CAR traced from Hefei Sunrise via Turkish-based distributors, to its eventual recovery sites in Iraq.
This was the first and only order that this company placed with the distributor. The value of this sale was estimated by the producer as around USD 18,000.
This was the listed address of Tehvid Bilişim, on the first floor of a small shopping centre in the Yusufpaşa area of Şanlıurfa.
It listed its business as the import and export of mobile phones. Tevhid Bilişim was thus an atypical purchaser for a large and expensive order of leafing aluminium paste.
Tevhid Bilişim was dissolved on 21 October 2019.
Between 2014 and 2015, Tevhid Bilişim also provided its Şanlıurfa address as the consignee address for international shipments of components for IS forces’ weapon programmes, including micro-turbines, motion control units, and rocket altimeters.
For each order, the company representatives instructed the suppliers to send goods to:
- an individual with the same name and address as the owner of Tevhid Bilişim,
- an individual sharing the same surname, at the same address in Şanlıurfa, or
- arranged for a UK employee to collect the goods and then re-dispatch them to the owner of Tevhid Bilişim in Şanlıurfa.
A UK resident called Siful Haque Sujan organised these purchases. Criminal trials in the US and Spain have since established that Sujan was associated with IS forces. The US Air Force claims that a coalition airstrike killed Sujan in Syria on 10 December 2015.
Sujan and his brother ordered a range of UAV and counter-surveillance components using two UK-registered companies to make the payments (Ibacstel Electronics and Advance Technology Global Ltd). They used fictitious names for the company directors and stakeholders.
Investigations into the human, financial, and logistics networks behind the sourcing and supply of IED material are a critical approach to upstream IED prevention. There were important red flags in this Tevhid Bilişim case that demonstrate the importance of thorough supply-chain due diligence:
- Tevhid Bilişim were a new customer;
- It placed a one-time order for an usually large purchase; and
- This order was for a product unrelated to its stated business type.
"We are literally up against a limitless set of highly capable and innovative criminals who share acts, share information across borders, they communicate with people around the world and they divert goods from global supply chains. And that makes government action and high-level dialogue on upstream IED threat analysis all the more important."
International Law Enforcement Cooperation: Daniel Golston, formerly of INTERPOL, gives an example of the 'Orange Notice' of an imminent IED-related threat to public safety.
Explore CAR's investigations into supply chains for IED-related material: Procurement Networks behind Islamic State Improvised Weapon Programmes (December 2020), Mines and IEDs Employed by Houthi Forces on Yemen's West Coast (September 2018), and Turkish Fertilizers used in Islamic State IEDs in Iraq (2016).
Documenting IED development
Upstream IED prevention efforts are closely linked to the monitoring of trends in IED acquisition, design, and development. Evolving trends in the production and delivery of IEDs by illicit actors present a great challenge to States and specialized organisations working to prevent the illicit proliferation and diversion of IED-related material.
By documenting and analysing IEDs recovered from unauthorized actors, CAR's field investigators have been able to identify new developments in the employment of IEDs in conflict zones.
"IED builders have highly sophisticated skills and knowledge, so if we shut down one item, they will find another way."
Synthetic rock-concealed IEDs in Yemen
Since the start of the conflict in Yemen, Ansar Allah 'Houthi' forces have employed significant number of IEDs against international coalition forces.
Between April 2017 and February 2018, CAR field investigation teams conducted six missions to Yemen to document weapons and IEDs seized from Houthi forces, and in that period investigators documented an increase in the number of comparatively more sophisticated IED s being used in the conflict.
CAR documented dozens of explosively formed projectiles (EFPs) in Yemen that had been camouflaged to resemble natural rocks. These devices are armed by radio control and initiated using passive infrared switches. They can be classified as RCIEDs.
Houthi forces emplaced these devices along motorways—as here–connecting Mokha and Dhubab, Mokha and Ta'iz, and Mokha and Khawkha.
CAR investigated these rock-concealed IEDs and identified that there are three main variants:
- anti-personnel IEDs containing improvised Claymore mines;
- IEDs containing a large shaped charge;
- RCIEDs containing between one and three EFPs.
The third variant was the most common that CAR encountered in Yemen during that period.
In January 2018, CAR documented and conducted basic exploitation of an RCIED that coalition forces recovered from Houthi forces to the north of Mokha, Yemen.
All of the components that made up the RCIED were secured, using expanding foam, within the body of a thin-walled fibreglass resin container.
The IED exterior was sculpted and painted to resemble a large rock, as shown.
CAR extracted an electronics kit from the RCIED, consisting of a power source, an RC receiver, antenna, and an arming switch with electrical lamp.
Multiple components were annotated with markings that contain the suffix '11'. This includes:
- the power source and RC receiver – marked 'X65-11' (left-top);
- the electrical lamp from the electronics kit – marked SA-11 (right) and;
- the microcontroller inside the RC receiver – marked SA-11 (bottom).
The use of EFPs emplaced within synthetic rocks has strong precedent outside of the Yemen conflict.
US forces in Iraq recovered numerous caches of comparable EFPs concealed within synthetic rocks—the components of which they later attributed to Iranian supplies to proxy forces .
Hezbollah has consistently employed similar devices against the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) in Israel and southern Lebanon.
In October 2017, CAR obtained images of multiple items, including synthetic rock-concealed IEDs, which the IDF had recovered from Hezbollah forces. The IEDs were similar in design and construction to those employed by Houthi forces in Yemen in three ways:
- The devices were constructed from a fibreglass resin body;
- They were filled with expanding foam; and
- They contained multiple 120 mm EFPs.
The devices recovered from Hezbollah forces also feature a sighting tube, which runs along the top of each charge, and is used for precise alignment during emplacement of the IED. This is not a feature of the RCIEDs that CAR documented in Yemen in 2017 and 2018..
Through unpacking of evolutions in IED development and use — and therefore building a detailed picture of the IED-related materials most in demand — investigations can play a critical role in international ‘attack the network’ efforts, including by law enforcement. From a counter-terrorism perspective, these are efforts designed to deprive insurgent and terrorist groups of the resources that sustain their hostile activities.
"The distinction between IED components and dual use components for other kinds of weapon systems is decreasing in some contexts. We're seeing attempts to build airborne IEDs and delivery systems that incorporate conventional military components. We see attempts by terrorist groups to build software-controlled devices that have complicated processors or semiconductors [...] We can't hope to continue to elaborate control lists that capture everything that comes out of an IED constructor's brain but that doesn't mean that we can't track them after their export and when they are found, if the record keeping is right and the marking is right."
Explore CAR's reporting on IED employment and design innovations: Radio-controlled, Passive Infrared-initiated IEDs (March 2018), Anatomy of a 'Drone Boat' (December 2017), and Islamic State's Multi-role IEDs (April 2017).
Conclusion
Upstream IED measures cover a wide range of efforts to prevent and counter the production and development of IEDs. This includes tackling the illicit proliferation and diversion of IED-related materials. As the nature of the challenges involved are invariably transnational, so too will effective response measures involve cooperation and a ‘whole-of- community’ approach.
The threat of IEDs is a priority topic in multiple international policy forums, such as the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW). Within the CCW, Amended Protocol II includes prohibitions or restrictions on the use of mines, booby-traps and other devices, and provides one possible framework in which governments can debate and identify ways to tackle the diversion or illicit use of materials that can be used for IEDs. A ‘ Declaration on Improvised Explosive Devices’ , issued at the conclusion of the 23rd Annual Conference in 2021 — chaired by the Government of Japan — stated an intent to, among other steps: “take all necessary and feasible steps, including where necessary, appropriate stockpile management, to prevent the diversion of precursors, explosive and components that may be used for the manufacture of IED, and to act cooperatively”.
Measures taken by Ghana: Leonard Tettey, National Small Arms and Light Weapons Project Coordinator, outlines how Ghana is tackling the diversion of commercial explosives that can be used in IED production.
Enhancing the supply chain integrity for items such as commercial detonators, or precursor materials such as fertilisers, will be critical in undermining efforts by illicit actors to develop IEDs. CAR’s investigations show the importance of effective due diligence across the supply chain in identifying red flags relating to IED material procurement. In some cases, connected networks of purchasers and consignees are only visible at the distributor level, one step down the supply chain from the international producers and suppliers of these goods. It shows the need for upstream IED prevention – in the form of private-sector due diligence and government risk assessments – across the transfer supply chain.
"Challenges have been observed in the accurate identification of IED materials; maintaining comprehensive and accessible records; and information sharing and coordination between different national and international stakeholders involved in tracing operations. Further unique challenges have been identified in conflict-affected settings, where there may be a lack of dedicated capacity and resources. In addition, emerging technologies and their applicability have represented both challenges and opportunities for countering the threat of IEDs [...] We seek to work jointly with states, international organizations and regional organizations, civil society, and private sector actors, to identify the pathway forward for strengthening and preventing efforts against IEDs."
Monitoring and tracing are both examples of essential prevention tools in identifying the sources of IED materials, as well as the networks involved in the supply chain. These help to identify red flags and provide companies and governments with timely alerts regarding the misuse of items intended for legitimate purposes. This information is critical in ultimately stemming the flow of these resources and thus decreasing the ability of illicit actors to manufacture IEDs in the future.
