Improvised explosive device (IED) attacks lead to bodily harm and deaths of thousands of people (security forces and civilian). There were 357 619 reported fatalities from 28 729 IED-related incidents worldwide between 2010 and 2020. Of these casualties, 263 487 were civilians. The various modes of IED deployment often register zero casualties on the side of the terrorists, except in the case of person-borne (PB) and vehicle-borne (VB-IEDs). This has led to the devices being branded the terrorists’ ‘weapon of choice’.
In Africa, IEDs have been used by terror groups such as Boko Haram and Al Shabab. In 2022, IED attacks were quite common in West Africa, including Mali, Nigeria, Cameroon, and Burkina Faso. Ivory Coast, Togo and Benin also recorded significant numbers of such attacks. In Ethiopia, between 2020 and 2021, there was an 815% increase in IED attacks – from 34 to 311 representing almost 1 incident a day. In Southern Africa, explosives smuggled across the border into South Africa from Zimbabwe have fuelled violent attacks especially targeting cash-in-transit vehicles.
Considering the growing trends in the use of IEDs and their devastating impact, the need to counter these devices has become one of the most enduring missions of counter-terrorism. Traditionally, the fight against explosives has been dominated almost entirely by the military and police. The lack of tangible progress has prompted calls for a whole-of-society approach or the inclusion of other stakeholders such as civil society organisations (CSOs). The role of the latter in countering the use of IEDs by terrorists and other criminal actors remains highly contested. In as much as CSOs can play an important role in countering IEDs within the remits of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2370 (2017), their role so far remains limited to capacity-building of security actors. The need to incorporate civil society organizations into the IED threat mitigation debate at community level, both pre and post attack, is yet to gain significant traction.
A probable explanation is the perception that the issue of IEDs is highly technical and sophisticated, a preserve for specialised units of the military and the police. This creates the false notion that civil society actors can only play a role in IED-victim support initiatives. The Institute for Security Studies (ISS) is one of the CSOs that have debunked this misconception of the role of CSOs through building the technical capacities of states to effectively investigate, prevent and manage IED-related incidents, from crime-scene management to understanding IEDs in both their physical characteristics and their contextual usage. The Institute has developed training manuals and technical assistance to states to design C-IED policy responses. The ISS has also used mentorship programmes to practitioners which include IED identification and disarming.
While the ISS’s contribution is consistent with the UNSCR 2370, which, inter alia underscores the “the significant role of civil society and the private sector in supporting such efforts,” the majority of CSOs is yet to play a visible and more meaningful role in countering IEDs. A United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) Counter IED expert told defenceWeb that the opportunities that community engagement has to offer in the fight against IEDs through CSOs remain under-exploited.
CSOs can play a critical role in raising awareness on IED issues at community level. Given their proximity to these communities, CSOs can contribute to intelligence, surveillance, and the sharing of information on movement of locally available IED components or devices such as mobile phone batteries, ammonium nitrate fertilizer, battery acid as well as bolts, nuts, rusty nails, broken glass (shrapnel), wires and even old crocs/sandals. Their local knowledge can provide contextual understanding of trends and characteristics of IEDs in a specific region, and awareness of red flags of potential perpetrators such as signs of dug up areas of an earth road surface, markers on trees and posts by the road, and heaps of fresh soil dumped randomly in the bushes by the road. One such training exercise was carried out in 2021 by the Centre for Civilians in Conflict in Lamu County, Kenya that targeted county security officers. The initiative, though noble, faced challenges of follow-up and upscaling due to funding.
For the CSO on-boarding strategy to work effectively though, there is a condition to it; security forces must establish cordial relations with community members. This is in the face of communities, in some cases, having undergone mistreatment at the hands of security actors, making it likely they will not support such C-IED programmes. IED attacks in such settings are used to settle scores and hopefully expel ‘occupying forces’. Successful IED attacks have sometimes been met with jubilation by communities. Soft power approaches therefore need to be used to ‘win the hearts and minds’ of communities prior to the onboarding process.
It is therefore recommended that think tanks provide further support in terms of agenda setting forums to come up with more pathways to upscaling CSOs’ engagement in IED threat mitigation.
UNMAS should set up a fund to support CSOs such as Handicap International, CIVIC and Mines Advisory Group involved in EID awareness across affected communities.
UNMAS should support the ISS and International Peace Support Training Centre’s Counter-IED Wing to develop and deliver curricula to CSOs on basic IED awareness. This support should translate to both onsite training and mobile training team capability enhancement. In addition, peacekeeping training centres should consider the inclusion of basic IED awareness in their hostile environment awareness training (HEAT) courses.
Security forces deploying for peace operations in IED-prone areas should factor into their concepts of operations mapping of key CSOs that they can work with to capacity build communities of IED awareness.
Interpol and countries with IED expertise like the UK, USA, Spain as well as NGOs like the ISS, should provide coaching and mentoring to police units deployed in IED-prone areas. These capacities can range from basics to more sophisticated training such as device disarmament.
Counter- IED strategies need to factor in the role of CSOs as key actors in the fight against this ‘weapon of choice’. Nations that are yet to come up with such a policy document should equally, come the time, incorporate the community element with the push for requisite community relations.
In conclusion, the IED threat continues to cause harm and distraction globally. In a bid to stem the tide of these deadly devices, the whole-of-systems approach that includes onboarding CSOs in the C-IED spectrum needs to be rolled out.
Written by Mugah Michael Sitawa, Researcher, ENACT, ISS Nairobi.
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