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About Jack Plaxe
Expertise
Terrorism, political violence and asymmetric warfare; terrorist weapons, tactics and targeting; terrorist IEDs and bombing tactics; critical infrastructure protection; water system security; transportation security, especially aviation and rail security; the application of security technology as part of a comprehensive protective strategy. I also maintain a small library and archive on these issues so I can suggest books and other reference works to those who are interested in these subjects.

Experience
I've been studying terrorism and working in the anti-terrorism field since the late 1980's. I've been involved in a range of projects including threat, vulnerability and risk assessments; security planning; security policy and procedure development; emergency response procedure development; crisis management planning; open-source research on terrorism and related issues; training program development; exercise design and evaluation. I've provided these services to airports; airlines; rail terminals; ports; utilities; schools; law enforcement agencies; fire departments; federal, state and local governments; and corporations.

You are here: Experts > News/Issues > Conspiracies and Extremism > Coping with Terrorism > IRA

Coping with Terrorism - IRA

Expert: Jack Plaxe - 11/5/2009

Question
Hey Jack,

Very quick question. I'm a screenwriter and am currently writing an exchange of dialogue between Islamic fundamentalist and Ex-IRA characters.

At one one point, the Islamic fundamentalist refers to IRA member only by his weapon of choice.

So what would be his weapon of choice in terms of explosives? Is there a device the IRA used that set them apart from the suicide bombers of today (beyond the fact they tended not to favor suicide)? Something that instantly identified them as IRA?

Thankin' you in advance

regards

Alex

Answer
Hi Alex -

Thank you for your question.

The IRA had a relationship with Libya, who provided the Czech plastic explosive Semtex in huge quantities. While the exact quantity is unclear, it was certainly more than 3 tons. The IRA used the Semtex as a high-explosive booster charge for other low explosives like ANFO.

Of course, terrorist groups used Semtex as well, not just the IRA. For this reason, I'm not sure it would make sense for an IRA member to be referred to by a plastic explosive that was widely used.

I hope this helps.

Jack

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