AFP bomb squad crafts IEDs to stay ahead of crooks
AFP's elite bomb squad deliberately constructs and detonates explosives in a covert facility, turning terrorists' own tactics against them.
Inside an electronics workshop in Australia’s capital territory there is a team of tech experts building bombs from scratch.
They’re not terrorists; rather, a team of elite specialists making improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and then blowing them up.
The mission is to get ahead of the bad guys.
“The devices are constructed from the same materials, and contain all the parts a criminal or terrorist would use in the real world to make a functional bomb,” said Bruce, the leader of the AFP’s Weapons Technical Intelligence team.
“It helps us see how easy, or difficult, it is to manufacture an IED, and what we need to look for when we’re part of a search warrant for example.
“Where practical, we will initiate the IED at an explosives range for analysis. That helps us identify what we might be looking for after an explosion has occurred. We look at what’s left basically.
“It might just look like a mangled piece of steel to some people, but in a perfect scenario, we find a marking, logo or serial number, anything we can pass on to investigators.”
The data collected and analysed can greatly assist the AFP and partner agencies.
“The type of device, materials used, how it was constructed, all those details can help authorities piece together crucial trends when it comes to these incidents,” Bruce said.
“Criminals are like anyone else in life, if they try something and it works, they’re likely to have another go.
“One obscure detail about a crime scene could be the key to solving the case, and it might be something our team has noticed from a previous job, which may not have been seen in another state or country.”
WTI specialists – part of the AFP’s Forensics Command – are called on to provide advice about evidence collected from a disaster scene, since any crime scene characteristic they can identify might help to crack the case.
They are experts in chemical or biological agents, radiological and nuclear materials, explosives or improvised explosive devices and electronics.
The team has deployed to major international incidents including the Bali Bombings in 2002 and 2005.
“After the 2005 incident, we found small components of a switch and electronic components
which helped to link the incident to devices we’d previously seen in Indonesia,” one of the team members said.
They were also called to the Australian Embassy bombing in Jakarta in 2004, the downing of MH-17 in eastern Ukraine in 2014, and other horrifying scenes in countries like Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Sri Lanka.
Originally published as AFP bomb squad crafts IEDs to stay ahead of crooks
