Terrorists are relentlessly evolving tactics and techniques for IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices), and analyzing reporting on IEDs can provide insight complementary to HUMINT on emerging militant methods. Preparing for an upcoming webcast with our friends at Terrogence, we found incidents using sports balls, particularly tennis balls and cricket balls, more frequently appearing as a delivery vehicle for explosives.
When we break these incidents from the last four months down by location, the city of Karachi in southern Pakistan stands out as a hotbed. There is also evidence that this tactic is being embraced around the globe as you can see sports balls fashioned into bombs found from Longview, Washington in the United States to Varanasi in India.
We can use Recorded Future’s Web Intelligence platform to plot out the locations where incidents have recently occurred as well as the frequency and timing.
Click for interactive view
You can click the timeline above for an interactive view of the reporting on these issues or join us next week to hear an in-depth discussion on analyst methodology for combining broad web-scale OSINT and deep vertical intelligence with OSINT and Virtual HUMINT.
Upcoming Webcast: Counter-IED Insight from Web Intelligence
Reminder: Join Recorded Future and Terrogence on May 23 for a webcast on applying Web Intelligence to counter-IED research. The discussion will illustrate a Web Intelligence workflow that leverages both broad web-scale OSINT and deep vertical intelligence with OSINT and Virtual HUMINT. Register here.