The Israeli reality is now shared by the U.S.

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IED’s killed and maimed so many U.S. and coalition soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, that the Pentagon was forced to create the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO).Terrorism experts say that as al Qaeda and its affiliates find it more and more difficult to engage in more spectacular terrorist attacks such as 9/11 and other attacks on aviation, they may resort to low-tech, IED-based attacks. Incendiary IEDs were already the most common weapons used in the 207 terrorist plots and attacks in the United States from 2001 to 2011. Domestic groups, led by the environmental Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front, were responsible for most of the attacks in that 10-year period. Al Qaeda was involved in four such attacks.

The two pressure-cooker bombs which exploded near the Boston Marathon’s finish line on Monday are, in effect, IEDs.

According to HLS NewsWire Terrorism experts say that as al Qaeda and its affiliates find it more and more difficult to engage in more spectacular terrorist attacks such as 9/11 and other attacks on aviation, they may resort to low-tech, IED-based attacks.

Fox News reports that security experts believe that terrorist organizations, but also unaffiliated lone wolves, may begin to use IEDs to target large gatherings in an effort to inflict mass damage and casualties.

“The reason to use an IED or multiple IEDs is that you’re trying to create an oversized impact, and as much panic and disruption as possible,” Bill Braniff, the executive director of the University of Maryland’s National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), told FoxNews.

On Tuesday, the FBI and DHS circulated an intelligence bulletin to U.S. law enforcement agencies, highlighting the fact that the Boston Marathon attack follows a pattern.

“The activities in Boston highlight the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to target large gatherings, including at special events, in order to inflict mass casualties,” said the bulletin, obtained by Fox News.

IEDs in various forms have been used by terrorists and insurgents for about thirty years now. The first two organizations to use them as an integral part of their campaigns were the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka and India, and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

Shi’a militias in Iraq, from 2003 to 2007, used advanced and more lethal IEDs against U.S. and coalition forces. These advanced devices were designed and manufactured by Iran.

IEDs, however, have been slow to show up in the United States.
Fox News notes that in recent years, several IED attacks have been planned but not successfully carried out.

The Tuesday DHS/FBI bulletin noted the following plots since 2009:
– In 2011 the police discovered an undetonated IED along the planned Martin Luther King Jr. unity parade route in Spokane, Washington.
– In November 2010 FBI agents and the Portland, Oregon police thwarted a Somali teenager’s plan to blow up a van full of explosives at a Christmas tree lighting ceremony.
– In May 2010 New York authorities thwarted an attempt to detonate an IED left in a smoking Nissan Pathfinder in Times Square.
– Nine months earlier, in 2009, New York City police stopped a plot to blow up the city’s subways using IEDs.

Experts say it was only a matter of time before IEDs made their way to the United States.

“Most people in law enforcement believed we would see these IEDs begin emerging in the U.S.,” Craig Dotlo, a retired FBI agent who helped investigate the 9/11 terrorist attacks, said.

A recent report by START says that IEDs were the most common weapons used in the 207 terrorist plots and attacks in the United States from 2001 to 2011. The study also found that incendiary devices accounted for more than half of all weapons used over the last decade, representing a large increase in the type of weapons used in terror attacks.

START notes that the perpetrators have often been domestic groups — with the environmental Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front responsible for the most attacks in that 10-year period.

Al Qaeda was involved in four of them. The Pakistani Taliban claimed involvement in the Times Square bombing case — but has said it had no role in the Boston attack Monday.

Experts note that the dual devices used in Monday’s marathon bombing are similar to those used in attacks in Sri Lanka in 2008 as well as a series of blasts in Lahore, Pakistan in 2006.

Dual IED devices were also used in attacks in Ireland in May 1998, May 2003, and May 2005.