IED threat

U.S. soldiers help African armies detect and defeat IEDs

Using lessons learned from Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army is helping its partners fight a growing IED threat across the African continent.

In the last 12 months, there were almost 1,000 improvised explosive device incidents, resulting in about 6,000 casualties, across Africa, according to officials from U.S. Army Africa citing United Nations and other open source websites.

Some of the heaviest activity has been in northern, eastern and central Africa, as groups such as Boko Haram, the Islamic State group and al-Shabaab step up their use of crude homemade bombs, officials said.