IRISH ARMY BOMB disposal officers have said a large amount of information on the internet could be aiding criminal gangs who use explosive devices to carry out attacks and intimidate rivals.
In the second part of our interview with two officers from the Explosive Ordnance Disposal team in the Defence Forces we look at their daily work.
The two men have revealed what it is like on the frontline of Irish bomb disposal, how the IRA’s decades-long terror campaign made their unit world experts, their work overseas and how organised criminals use bombs to create fear.
The officers, a Captain and a Commandant, who cannot be identified for security reasons, spoke about the current threat environment.
They said from the height of the Troubles individual operators have gone from 500 call outs to deal with explosive devices a year to just 75 this year.
In recent times pipe bombs and other devices have become a feature of Irish organised crime gangs’ threats against rivals – with frequent callouts in recent years to parts of Dublin, Galway, Limerick, Cork and Louth.
The Captain said that one key aspect to this growth area was the internet.
“Unfortunately there’s a massive amount of information available for people to access when it comes to trying to construct these kinds of devices.
“However, because they’re improvised, there’s absolutely no way of knowing if it’s going to work the way the bomb-maker intended or if it’s going to go off in some other way.
“We always have to approach it from the worst case scenario and then kind of come down from there.
“When you’re dealing with anything that’s improvised like that there’s a large amount of unknowns that you have to think through. We work from the most dangerous elements back down to the lower levels,” he said.
The Explosive Ordnance Team, who are scattered at bases across the country, respond regularly to Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) associated with criminal activity.
It is difficult to get details on such incidents, as the EOD teams operate in an environment of extreme secrecy, but the two operators have said that they and their colleagues have attended 75 incidents, of different categories, this year.
Some of those calls took up to three days to resolve due to the nature of the devices they dealt with.
The team members were anxious to stress that their role is to assist An Garda Síochána and that having made safe the device they then allow gardaí to harvest forensic evidence.
“There is a wide variety of types of tasks that we deploy on the island (in Ireland). A lot of the calls would be for conventional munitions. They are, say, Civil War era munitions that were discovered by someone digging up their garden and they might find something that had been buried there a long time ago.
“They could also have been hidden up in an attic or something like that and only discovered when the building has been renovated.
“Then we have the kind of more malicious type devices. These are trying to target individuals or have been placed with the purpose to cause fear or or to cause harm – and they can have a variety of sources as well.
“Often times it is criminal elements that more than likely they are being sourced from. So in that case, we respond we render any item safe, and then we provide assistance to An Garda Síochána,” the Commandant explained.
The two operators were keen to stress that the threat level across the island of Ireland had reduced significantly since the height of The Troubles.
But the republican and loyalist terror campaigns have left a lasting legacy of lessons learned for the Irish Defence Forces.
“The Ordnance Corps existed, performing logistical functions long before the Troubles, but the EOD elements came about around that stage.
“Collaboration with our neighbours was key to developing methods of operating to meet the challenges of that security environment and the tactical challenges that were being presented with regards to IEDs and also the development of those.
“So for example, IEDs would have started off quite simple, they would have then morphed and evolved to actually target the EOD operators and they would have become more complex and more involved operations,” the Commandant explained.
Such was the danger to Irish bomb disposal technicians that they have developed best practice now utilised by other countries to deal with the threat from IEDs.
The Commandant said: “Thankfully, the situation is completely, completely different and the current state, very little, little no threat certainly within our area of operations.
“The older generations of EOD operators, they are highly experienced and they could be clocking 500 Plus EOD tasks throughout their careers, which is a staggering number.
“When we look at it now we learn from those guys and we have developed how we do what we do now”.
In one such display of so-called corporate knowledge, on a recent trip to Qatar to prepare the local forces to deal with terror threats at the upcoming World Cup, a scenario was examined which fed back to Northern Ireland.
“We were able to explain the reason it was sequenced that way was because of an event that had happened in Northern Ireland, that is why it is sequence in a particular manner to protect the operator.
“We have to remember this is where EOD was born in its current form and that’s where we’ve come from,” he added.
When not dealing with explosives or weaponry the Ordnance Corps also has a logistical responsibility for tents – during the Covid-19 they have been out in the community providing tenting for test centres.
The captain said that another key aspect of their work is on peacekeeping missions – with trips to UNIFIL in Lebanon and UNDOF on the Golan Heights in Syria.
“The bomb disposal operations in those areas, for the most part, involve dealing with unexploded munitions from decades of warfare.
“From the Lebanese perspective in Lebanon, where the Irish troops are deployed, we are very well received by the locals and through, engagement of the commanders with the local leaders of the area.
“We have a very friendly posture in that area of operations. So we are generally very well received and just not perceived as threat in general. However, in these areas of work, the situation can escalate very, very rapidly,” he said.
In the Golan Heights the situation is different while the Captain was unable to give specific details for security reasons.
“I think in terms of a direct threat against the United Nations peacekeepers there still be quite low.
“However, in close proximity to the area of operations where the UN peacekeepers are, there is still conflict.
“Just a few steps for something to change in to a different scenario or something to escalate. So, again, we feel you have to be prepared for the worst, and hope for the best,” he added.
Besides the more high profile work of EOD and the work during the pandemic their day to day tasks involve repairing weaponry and the storing of munitions.
The Captain said: “EOD is the most challenging kind of critical thinking and action had to do so far.”
The Commandant added: “I would say the job is certainly broad, can be extremely challenging, in some instances, but it is very rewarding, and no two days will be the same.”
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