Iraqi insurgents now using infra-red IEDs to foil signal jammers.

The coalition had begun using signal jammers to prevent remote detonation of IEDs using devices like garage door openers, remotes from toys, or cell phones. Their efforts to jam signals may now be ineffective as the insurgents are now using a type of IED that is set off by an infrared 'trip wire'.

Before the vehicle approaches too far, the insurgents activate the infrared device via radio signal so that the next car that drives through there will break the IR beam, which will then set off the explosion.

telegraph

Before the introduction of infra-red devices, bombs in Iraq were usually set off by an electronic remote control signal found in a mobile telephone, car locking device, garage door opener or even a child's toy.

They could be blocked by electronic countermeasures developed by the Army in Northern Ireland.

These are powerless, however, against infra-red beams, which can be modified from burglar alarm systems. Military commanders have briefed soldiers to be more cautious and avoid rushing into potential attacks. Patrol routes are varied so that no pattern is set.

Infra-red beams have been used by the IRA, and by the Red Army Faction to kill Alfred Herrhausen, the chairman of the Deutsche Bank, in 1989.

"There has always been cross fertilisation of terrorist technology across the terror diaspora," said a former Army bomb disposal officer. "Infra-red is virtually impossible to jam whereas radio control and cell phone systems are jammable."

They are continuing to get more sophisticated every year.
They're constantly developing new tactics.
As an army disposal officer said "These guys have picked up in two years what it took the IRA a quarter-century to learn"


[edit on 21-8-2005 by AceOfBase]

They are cunning indeed, but then this is what should be expected fighting these kinds of battles.
Im sure that in a FIBUA situation you have to keep your wits about you and the fact that the U.S. Army is having trouble there shows what they are capable of.

Yes, they are tricky and resourceful. But it seems that this tactic should be easily defeated with scanners or drones.

From an article dated 6/8/2005:

While IED attacks have increased, U.S. casualties from them have gone down. From April 2004 to April 2005, task force spokesman Dick Bridges said, the number of casualties from IED attacks had decreased 45%.

Note this mention:

The Pentagon now has about 4,200 portable electronic jamming devices in Iraq and more are on the way, Bridges said. The military is about to test a new device at its Yuma, Ariz., proving ground that is capable of exploding bombs by sending an electrical charge through the ground.

That device, called a Joint Improvised Explosive Device Neutralizer (JIN), could be deployed to Iraq sometime this year if tests prove successful, Bridges said.

USA Today article

And this mention from another source discussing the advent of better IEDs:

Yet a more fundamental problem may be in store for the enemy. By engaging America in a technological arms race of sorts they are playing to its strengths. The relative decline in IED effectivity suggests the enemy, while improving, has not kept up. The move to bigger bombs may temporarily restore his lost combat power, but the advent of new American countermeasures plus increasing pressure on the bombmakers, means he must improve yet again. It is far from clear whether the insurgents can stay in the battle for innovation indefinitely. The logic of asymmetric warfare suggests the enemy will at some point abandon the direct technological weapons race and find a new paradigm of attack entirely. That is essentially what they did when they abandoned the Republican Guard tank formation in favor of the roadside bomb in the first place.

One way to achieve this (and they have been perfecting their skills by attacks against Iraqi civilians) is to switch to other targets. In this way, they can find employment for weapons and skills which are no longer effective against American combat forces. The other is to invent some other surpassingly vicious method of attack; to create the successor to the IED. Whatever that new paradigm turns out to be, it will be probably be regarded as an unanswerable weapon, like the biplane bombers of the 1930s.

The Unstoppable IED




seekerof

Iraq is a live training and testing ground.
When ever something happens, the US just happen to have a new technology they can try out to fix the problem.

They've tested various weapons systems, various defence measures, they've tested population control on many levels including biometric/I.d. databasing Fallujah and a lot of other things are 'firsts' in the art of war.

I wouldn't be surprised to see someone alot closer to home than what we're led to believe being responsable for keeping the insurgency healthy, we know for fact the CIA use terrorist groups as proxies, i imagine something similar here (al-Zarqawi has been quiet ever since he apparently jumped from a car and ran off from the US army and especially since the Iraqi's started saying he's not even a real person and not responsable for whats going on in Iraq).

The US need a lot of live practise in the field of population control if they plan to remove more governments/royals around the world, deal with uprising populations and even control America's own population if or when the time comes. Iraq is the perfect training ground for this. Just one of many things happening in Iraq that is hidden by the illusion of 'spreading freedom'.

Terrorist groups are akin to drops of water on a flat surface. Small drops scattered around which on their own are nothing to worry about but as they drops start to merge they become bigger patches and eventually puddles.
There's ALWAYS been drops of terrorists around the world, that's not new. What is new is this 'war on terror' which is designed to have these small groups merge together under a shared ideology, which the west has dubbed 'al-Qaeda', and watch as it becomes a giant puddle and a verifiable enemy worthy of global war.

Iraq is a boiling pot for this tatic of creating an enemy and it's a testing ground for fighting this enemy. When this war becomes global, it will make the world of sense as to why Iraq just never came good.

^^^^ Christ lol, seems like ATS may need a tip truck to remove all the BS that just came out of your mouth then.

IR is line of sight. Still effective, but very dangerous for the insurgents. This is not exactly a big deal as a result. My little kid stands in front of the TV and his big head defeats my IR remote.

They only work if they can see and point at the device. This also limits the hiding of the device as part of it needs to be exposed to "see" the IR signal.

Trouble for sure, but not earth shattering in any way shape or form.



[edit on 22-8-2005 by skippytjc]

Originally posted by skippytjc
They only work if they can see and point at the device. This also limits the hiding of the device as part of it needs to be exposed to "see" the IR signal.

That's not how this works.
The IR beam is like a trip wire that sets off the explosives when the troops drive through and break the beam of light.

It's activated via radio or some other method before the troops get close enough to jam the signals.

Here's a diagram showing how it works:

could a mirror work against the infrared?, i mean u could put mirrors about the vehicles and it pretty much can cross them while not detonating them by refecting it back to the source in belief that nothing has crossed yet.

A mirror wouldn't work because it would to be at the exact angle to reflect right back at the device.

The only thing they could do is use imaging devices to detect the IR beam.
I don't think they'll work well during the day because of IR from the sun but it should work during the night time.

[edit on 22-8-2005 by AceOfBase]

Originally posted by AceOfBase

That's not how this works.
The IR beam is like a trip wire that sets off the explosives when the troops drive through and break the beam of light.

It's activated via radio or some other method before the troops get close enough to jam the signals.

Ahh, mental fart on my end. That makes much more sense. These things can be tiny too.

But they still need to run wires to the IED itself from the sensor, so still not as "clean" as a wireless device

[edit on 22-8-2005 by skippytjc]

www.electrical-surveys.com...

Thermal Imaging is the conversion of radiated or reflected heat into real-time pictures or images. A thermal image is an analogue pictorial representation or visualisation of temperature differences.

All objects above absolute zero (-273 degrees) emit radiation, some of which is infra-red. Depending on temperature and emissivity, most objects in the world can be thermally imaged.

it seems to me, thermal imaging is the best possible tool to counter the infra red IED. its possible in the near future more advance technology would help detect IEDs futher and give ani grunt more time to see the IED before he or she is too close. or we can do the cheaper way and have a long arm and put in front of the vehicle and let it detonate from afar but u be having a hard time turning to another street.

IR sensors can still be jammed, but jamming them causes them to detonate at the same time.

Since the IR portion of the "capture" lens still is a electronic signal that must be processed to confirm that the beam is broken. You can essentially send a broadcast jamming sweep of known IR ICU Chips and basically detonate any and all of them in the given area as along as they are "on". The insurgents have somewhat taken this into account by adding an arming, power on relay into the bomb control. Thereby making them passive until they arm them. Send a predator out in front of a convoy sweeping with the IR jamming signal and BOOOM the bomb goes off hopefully before the convoy reaches it. But you have no control over collateral damage. Same thing you have an active IR jammer on the lead convoy vehicle and if you come into proximity of an active IR beamed IED and BOOMMM but again no control over collateral damage.

What they need is an IR 360 degree Flood transmitter. An orb that releases an IR beam array in a 360 degree field. Coming close to an IR receiver should keep the signal in an open status until it can be deactivated safely. Unfortuantly if the Insurgents connected a back up detonating device along with it, say a long detonating wire could cause just as much causalties.

In the end it was really bad planning.....

We should have swept through the towns and like the Germans did, remove all the people block by block march them out into a "safe" zone in the desert while part of your troops goes house to house, block to block removing weapons. And then when you feel safe that you have most of the weapons slowly allow "checked" residents to return home. You do this slowly and methodically and anyone who gets out of line you demolish their homes.