Senators Call on Pentagon to Counter Islamic State’s Use of IEDs

A pair of senators is pushing the Pentagon to do more to prevent the Islamic State from using massive improvised explosive devices that have long been a hallmark of Sunni insurgents and, more recently, cleared the extremists’ pathway to seize the Iraqi city of Ramadi last month.

Specifically, Sens. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) want to crack down on smuggling routes from Turkey and Syria that are bringing ammonium nitrate fertilizer into the Islamic State’s stronghold. The fertilizer fuels the deadly homemade bombs, also known as IEDs.

“The development of these smuggling networks not only poses a threat in Iraq and Syria but to the security of neighboring countries,” Casey and Whitehouse told Defense Secretary Ashton Carter in a Tuesday letter obtained by Foreign Policy.

The fall of Ramadi, the capital of the Sunni-dominated Anbar province, was a major setback for Iraqi and coalition forces, and raised new questions about whether Baghdad’s security forces are capable of defending their own country.

Key to the Islamic State’s success was the launching of 27 car bombs during the three-day surge in Ramadi, a tactic that pulverized the Iraqi troops’ defensive perimeters. But the extremist group is using the lethal bombs for defensive purposes as well.

Last week, the Pentagon said the group had begun planting IED booby traps around Ramadi to stave off a counterattack by Iraqi forces to retake the city. Pentagon spokesman Army Col. Steve Warren said fighters are “preparing for a defense” by digging embankments, planting bombs, and routing supplies to fighters there.

Since 2012, the U.S. State Department has been the sole funder of an international program run by the World Customs Organization (WCO) to track cross-border trade in bomb-making materials like ammonium nitrate. But money for the Project Global Shield program — $5.9 million over the last three years — will run out at the end of 2015, said a private expert in Washington who spoke on condition of anonymity.

No new funds have been designated to keep Project Global Shield up and running, said the expert, and the Brussels-based WCO has refused to identify the 94 countries that are involved in it — or even where or when it meets.

IEDs have long been a problem for U.S. troops and U.S.-supported forces in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the latter war, the U.S. poured millions of dollars into stemming the flow of ammonium nitrate from Pakistan into Afghanistan.

Last month, the New York Times reported that the Turkish town of Akcakale near the Syrian border had become a hub for ammonium nitrate going into Syria, raising questions about Turkey’s commitment to cutting off resources to the militant group. While Turkey has stepped up efforts to stem the flow of foreign fighters going into Syria from its borders in recent months, the country still allows cross-border trade, which benefits Islamic State fighters.

“Trade continues to go into the north, not just to ISIS, but ISIS is a tangential beneficiary of the trade policy,” Aaron Stein, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, told the paper.

Besides disrupting the smuggling networks, the two senators, both members of the Senate Caucus on WMD Terrorism, recommended other ways to address the IED threat.

That includes: Ensuring that bomb and chemical detection skills are integrated into training courses for Iraqi and Kurdish security forces and U.S.-backed Syrian rebels, and encouraging stronger coordination within Washington’s bureaucracy to confront the threat.

“It is appropriate for those best practices to be adapted and applied to the fight against ISIS,” wrote the senators. “On a daily basis, Iraqi security forces and civilians alike are targeted by these dangerous weapons.”

FP staff writer Paul McLeary contributed to this report.

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