Mexican Cartels Using IEDs in Drug Wars

Mexican Cartels Using IEDs in Drug Wars
Mexican drug cartels battling security forces are using the same kind of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that insurgents have been employing against coalition forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.
“Mexico in the last 90 days has experienced at least three vehicle-borne explosive devices against their security forces, which look very similar to the model that we saw in Iraq and continue to see,” said Lt. Gen. Michael Oates, director of the Joint IED Defeat Organization (JIEDDO).
JIEDDO is a Department of Defense endeavor to reduce or eliminate the effects of all forms of IEDs used against U.S. and coalition forces.
In its 2009 annual report, JIEDDO warned that Mexican drug cartels “may increase the use of IED TTPs [tactics, techniques, and procedures] to respond to increased law enforcement pressure.”
Speaking at the Foreign Press Center in Washington, D.C., Oates said IEDs are “being used throughout the world to impact stable governments. We track about three to four hundred incidents a month occurring outside of Iraq and Afghanistan, where people are using improvised explosive devices against law enforcement or against military security forces.”
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia use IEDs in their fight against the government, according to Oates.
The explosive devices are “easily concealable. They’re inexpensive. And they are terribly devastating, in some cases against the civilian population,” he said.
This year IEDs have caused nearly 60 percent of the casualties suffered by coalition forces in Afghanistan, AFP reported.
The potential for their increased use in Mexico is troublesome. As the Insider Report disclosed two weeks ago, the death toll in Mexico’s cartel-related drug wars has exceeded 10,000 for this year, with nearly half of the murders occurring in the U.S.-Mexico border region.