The evolution of homemade bombs

A U.S. Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle that I rode while working as a war correspondent in Afghanistan in April 2010 was a sort of shield for life. Having lost many troops to improvised explosive devices (IEDs), the U.S. Department of Defense replaced the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles, commonly known as the Humvees, the icon of the Gulf War, with MRAPs. Costing half a million U.S. dollars per unit, the MRAPs’ main purpose is to protect passengers from explosives that go off from the ground. The vehicle weighs 17 tons. One door weighs more than 160 kilograms.

IEDs are the main culprit that causes huge casualties of the U.S. and allied troops in the U.S.-led war on terrorism. Two of three soldiers killed in action were victims of IEDs. It is said that Britain and the U.S. taught Third World insurgents how to make the explosives in order to help them. The IEDs have evolved rapidly, as even curbstones, children’s toys and dead animals are used to make the explosives, which are now considered the best weapons for causing trouble to an enemy with overwhelming military power.

The pressure cooker bomb used in Monday`s Boston Marathon bombing was also a homemade explosive, which international terrorist organizations and individual terrorists have often used since the 1990s. It became widely known after an online magazine published by Al-Qaeda in Yemen in 2010 introduced how to “make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom.” Instead of rice, a pressure cooker is filled with ammonium nitrate or a powerful explosive called RDX, ball bearings and metal nails before a detonator is planted. It is a weapon of mass destruction that can be made at the expense of 100 to 200 dollars.

Once bitten, twice shy. On Wednesday afternoon, an explosive ordinance disposal unit scurried to a parking lot in Los Angeles where a dumped pressure cooker was found, and local broadcasters sent helicopters to the scene. Such a fuss could happen in South Korea, where almost every household has a rice cooker. Some people jokingly say that the South now has one more thing that would prevent North Korean leader Kim Jong Un from invading the South.

Editorial Writer Ha Tae-won (triplets@donga.com)