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IED Found Under Texas Bridge: Improvised Explosive Device Called ‘Extremely Dangerous’

By Aaron Homer
Published on: 05:10 PST, May 4, 2016

An IED — that is, an Improvised Explosive Device — was found underneath a central Texas bridge Tuesday night, KCEN-TV (Waco) is reporting.

Two young boys hunting rabbits discovered the IED late Tuesday night, under a highway bridge near Rosebud, Texas — a town of about 1,400 people, about 80 miles from Austin. The boys alerted their parents, who then called the fire department.

Eventually the McLennan County Bomb Squad was called in, followed by agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF).

Using X-Ray equipment, officials were able to determine that the IED consisted of a plastic bottle with a fuse attached. Inside were a flammable liquid and shotgun shells. Authorities say the shotgun shells would have acted as shrapnel should the bomb have been detonated.

Two other suspicious devices were also found at the scene.

Fortunately, authorities were able to use a water cannon to dislodge and disable the bomb. The liquid inside was sent to a lab for further testing.

According to Sheriff Parnell McNamara, the bomb would have been “extremely dangerous” had it gone off.

“Someone had made this to create lots of damage and harm.”

The two young boys who found the bomb are not considered suspects, as of this writing. Authorities currently have no other leads in the investigation.

IEDs are essentially homemade bombs that are favored by terrorists. In particular, IEDs are favored by insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, and have been used against U.S. troops in the region since the beginning of both wars.

In fact, according to a September, 2015, Defense One report, the number of Americans killed in Iraq by IEDs is in dispute. Speaking to the Senate Armed Services Committee in June of that year, Senator Ted Cruz testified that the number of troops killed by IEDs, assembled and funded with Iranian backing, was well into the hundreds.

“I understand that the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency has a classified list of roughly 500 American soldiers who were murdered by Iranian IEDs.”

However, U.S. Central Command says otherwise, positing that the between November, 2005, and December, 2011, 1,526 IEDs detonated in Iraq, killing 196 U.S. troops and injuring 861.

In a December, 2013, USA Today report, Army Lt. Gen. John Johnson said that IEDs have essentially changed the face of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“They’ve caused us a lot of pain… a lot of effort and a lot of treasure.”

IEDs can be assembled quickly and cheaply, and anyone who has access to the internet and a hardware store can make one.

And in fact, IEDs have been used in terrorist attacks in the United States.

On April 15, 2013, according to The History Channel, two bombs exploded near the finish line at the Boston Marathon. The bombs detonated in the attack were homemade IEDs — specifically, the terrorists responsible for the attack stuffed shrapnel and explosives into pressure cookers. The cheap and crude homemade bombs killed three people and injured 260 others.

In another example, on April 19, 1995, domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh constructed a bomb out of fertilizer and racing fuel, packed it into a truck, and then detonated it at the entrance to the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

The terrorist attack killed 168 people and injured hundreds more.

As of this writing, police have no suspects and no motive in the case of the IED found under a Texas bridge.

[Image via Shutterstock/Donavan]

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