Improvised explosive devices and their threat for the population

Improvised explosive device (IED), for many a meaningless set of three words, but for professionals who deal with this issue it is a concept related to absolute threat and a significant danger that is not only an emergency situation but also a global problem. IED is a weapon that has become a sheer standard and the most frequently used lethal means in most armed conflicts and wars of drug cartels. However, people do not realize these systems are the destructive agents that destroy houses, tear cars apart and kill people in terrorist attacks. Maybe some people are not familiar with the name - IED, but I am sure that they know the title - which is used by the media. They call it bombings. As I mentioned before, the IED is the biggest killer in today's wars, where the debit attributed not only hundreds or thousands of the dead, wounded and maimed soldiers of the coalition forces but also the bringer of death for dozens of thousands of innocent civilian casualties. IEDs are not only a phenomenon associated with armed conflicts, wars, drug cartels, guerrilla insurgents practices at various locations around the world and a way of terrorist violence, but also means exploited by individuals or groups to commit crime. In the Czech Republic, we can come across with other nomenclature where the professional literature for training of the police bomb squad of the Czech Republic mentions explosive booby traps (hereinafter NVS), and after a few years yet another term appears - an improvised explosive device (hereinafter IVP). In this thesis, however, for the purpose of familiarization with international terminology I will use international names, terms, abbreviations and translations. At the beginning of this thesis, I will briefly deal with the term of IEDs, what they present and what kind of forces should deal with them in the Czech Republic and dismantle them at our homeland or abroad. Furthermore, I present what the subject of this research is. In the theoretical part, I try to draw the reader into a bit of history and to highlight some of the time periods, facts and information that provide a better view and easier understanding of some topics related to the IED. And in a nutshell, I introduce some terrorist and insurgent groups and their way they have been using IEDs in their fight, why and what this usage has brought. Later in this chapter, I mention the basic concepts and their explanations that appear in the thesis. For better understanding I introduce the construction of IED. I describe various basic components of these systems (switch, initiator, power source, main charge, container and enhancement), their categories, types, their description, what they are for, what are the advantages or disadvantages and what kind of IED types they are associated with. In the last section of this chapter I describe specific types of IEDs, I mention their representatives and I describe in detail those that currently pose the greatest threat. I also present categories and types of IED incidents, which the EOD Service of the Police of the Czech Republic (hereinafter PS PČR) and EOD units in the Army of the Czech Republic (hereinafter EOD AČR) have been dealing with