On May 17, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 6873, the Bombing Prevention Act of 2022. The bill awaits action by the Senate.

If passed, the bill would give the Office for Bombing Prevention (OBP), part of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), statutory authority to:

• Enhance secure information sharing between government offices and the public
• Provide critical training, guidance, assessments, and planning to public and private organizations, and others facing bomb threats
• Work with international partners to develop and share effective practices to mitigate and respond to terrorist threats and attacks
• Develop and maintain the Department of Homeland Security’s comprehensive strategy for countering explosive devices

CISA OBP leads DHS efforts to implement the U.S. policy for countering IEDs, Presidential Policy Directive 17 (PPD-17), Countering Improvised Explosive Devices, which guides our nation’s work to secure the U.S. and its allies, partners, and interests from IEDs and enhance the ability to prevent, protect against, respond to, and mitigate the use of explosives against critical infrastructure, the private sector, and federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial entities.

On the morning of EOD Day on May 11, officials from the bombing prevention community discussed the current threat environment and other issues with Congressional lawmakers from the EOD Caucus. CISA OBP Associate Director Sean Haglund highlighted actions to counter these threats and support HBCUs, including the resources available to confront the bomb threats from domestic violent extremists and a range of terrorist affiliated organizations.

During the evening event, Congressional officials converged to see bombing prevention product displays and explore new approaches with officials from the United States Bomb Technician Association, the National Bomb Squad Commanders Advisory Board, OBP, and branches of the Armed Services. Rep. Rick Crawford (R-AR) and Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL), the co-chairs of the EOD Caucus, extolled the sacrifice, dedication, and perseverance of the bombing prevention community and those who served in the military.

For the second consecutive year, CISA OBP collaborated with the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City and the Department of State’s Export Control and Related Border Security (EXBS) Program to provide training to government officials in Mexico. The training included a bombing prevention awareness course and a protective measures course – which were each offered multiple times over the course of several days.

Instructed entirely in Spanish, the trainings supported members of the Mexican government, including the Mexican National Guard, Secretariat of National Defense (SEDENA), and the Secretaría de Marina (SEMAR).

“While we continue to learn a great deal from our partners, in the spirit of global cooperation and security, we also are very eager to impart our lessons and insights onto them,” said CISA OBP’s Associate Director Sean Haglund during the event. “The dual-use nature of IED components pose unique challenges in our ability to regulate and limit terrorist access to IED precursors and trigger components. Thus, we have the nexus between our office and EXBS Mexico.”

As part of the U.S.’s bilateral collaboration on the non‐proliferation of weapons of mass destruction with Mexico, the Department of State’s EXBS Program delivers training and courses to various areas of the Mexican government.

To learn more about CISA OBP and its free trainings, please visit Counter-IED Training Courses | CISA.

CISA OBP now has four courses recognized under the IADLEST National Certification Program and will be submitting several more for certification during the year. Under this certification, CISA OBP has trained 556 law enforcement personnel, which is an overall increase in participation of 67% for the four certified courses.

IADLEST is an international association, in partnership with Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) organizations around the nation, with a mission to eliminate many of the problems associated with a lack of standardization within criminal justice training. The IADLEST National Certification Program (NCP) establishes minimum standards for vendors providing law enforcement continuing education and ensures the training content meets those quality standards. The standards are designed to meet or exceed any individual state certification requirements, ensuring national certified training is accepted by all participating POST organizations for in-service or advanced training credit.

IADLEST certification of CISA’s OBP Training Program provides 6,500 key law enforcement leaders, 900,000 police and correctional officers, and 664 law enforcement training academies in all 50 states direct access to critical counter-IED training, attaining the highest standards for law enforcement continuing education to meet their professional development goals and in-service training requirements.

The EIR reviews bombing and explosives related incidents from information reported to the United States Bomb Data Center (USBDC) through BATS and open-source information through TRIPwire. The EIR is an informational product prepared by the USBDC in collaboration with CISA OBP.

Explosive-related incidents include recoveries, suspicious packages, threats, and/or thefts/losses in the USBDC’s EIR. The breakdown of these incidents shows that 381 were bombings, 7,039 were recoveries, and 4,935 were suspicious/unattended packages. As with this year’s EIR, the report will incorporate data from both BATS and TRIPwire going forward.

A notable finding in the EIR was the spike in bomb threats in 2021. The TRIPwire Annual Report suggests a correlation between the uptick in bomb threats to the reopening of schools in 2021. Education facilities are the most frequently targeted category for bomb threats, with elementary and high schools reporting five times the number of threats compared to preschools and colleges. The post-pandemic reopening of society could have impacted other common categories, including assembly and residential facilities. 

For more details on the findings from CISA OBP’s TRIPwire 2021 USBDC Annual Report, log into  TRIPwire and click on the report graphic in the carousel. You can sign up for a TRIPwire account at https://tripwire.dhs.gov. For assistance registering for the site, please contact the TRIPwire Helpdesk at 866-987-9473, or email TripWireHelp@dhs.gov.

Strategic mass bomb threat campaigns may target specific types of critical infrastructure, such as election polling locations, higher education institutions, medical facilities, and faith-based organizations, to enhance impact and create cascading consequences.  Just this year, a wave of bomb threats targeted HBCUs and Jewish Community Centers.

To best prepare for and respond to mass bomb threats, CISA OBP developed a postcard and a bulletin that offer risk management guidelines and resources to protect personnel and infrastructure. CISA OBP’s new Mass Bomb Threat Postcard outlines the different bomb threat levels, as well as appropriate actions to take. The postcard also provides critical information on the indicators of a bomb threat and its potential impact on an operational and psychological level.

Complementing that product, CISA OBP also released a TRIPwire Awareness Bulletin (TAB) for Responding to Mass Bomb Threat Campaigns that provides resources for a managed response to bomb threat campaigns and information on previous mass bomb threat campaigns. These resources include both virtual and in-person training, checklists, educational videos, and more.

“Bombing prevention begins at the local level,” said CISA OBP Deputy Associate Director David Williamson. “Our new mass bomb threat guidance products provide recent, real-world context while teaching best practices and threat assessment parameters to evaluate threats on a case-by-case basis.”

For information about these and other resources to help stakeholders react to bomb threats or suspicious items, go to OBP’s “What to Do: Bomb Threat Resources” webpage.

On May 20, the FBI hosted CISA Deputy Director Nitin Natarajan, Infrastructure Security Division (ISD) Executive Assistant Director (EAD) Dr. David Mussington, ISD Deputy Executive Assistant Director Steve Harris, OBP Associate Director Sean Haglund, and other employees of CISA for a live explosive and Improvised Explosive Device (IED) render safe technology demonstration from the Advanced Disablement Engineering and Technology Seminar at the Charlie Demolition Range in Quantico, Va.

Local public safety bomb technicians were invited to emphasize capability gap solutions and sustainment training for public safety bomb squads, while providing hands-on training of new developing technology from DHS and FBI.

“It was fascinating—and disturbing—to see up close at Quantico’s Charlie Demolitions Range the sheer power of different explosives and the destruction that they wreak,” said EAD Mussington following the event. “In light of the growing bomb threats on historically black colleges and universities and other groups, it put an even greater perspective on the importance and immediacy of OBP’s mission.”

The collaborative demonstration allowed CISA personnel to better understand the importance of OBP’s counter-IED mission, which is reducing risk to the nation’s critical infrastructure by building nationwide counter-IED core capabilities through collaborative interagency initiatives and enduring partnerships within the emergency response community.

The May 3 conference took place in Huntsville, Ala. and included bomb squad commanders from across the country, along with representatives from the federal agencies that support the public safety bomb squads. The participants collaborated to discuss cooperation, communication, and the flow of information among bomb squads and the law enforcement community. Some of the key topics of discussion included:

• Resolving issues regarding certification and accreditation
• Making recommendations concerning HDS and other trainings
• Assessing research and development needs
• Advancing policies and procedures surrounding bomb squad assessments

The conference resulted in effective and necessary product development and new training requirements for bomb technicians. In their efforts to advance and enhance bomb squad’s national level of readiness in the face of threats, OBP, in cooperation with the FBI, announced new policy that requires all bomb squads to complete a unit level C-IED capability assessment prior to sending candidates to the FBI Bomb Technician Certification Course. The C-IED capability assessment measures the ability of personnel, equipment, and training required for effective prevention, protection, and response to IED threats.

Over the course of the 3-day conference, OBP worked with the bomb squad commanders to update their assessments and completed more than 60 new unit level C-IED capability assessments. This integrated information provides a snapshot of unit, local, state, regional, and national counter-IED preparedness that informs decision-makers on policy decisions, resource allocation, and crisis management.

OBP encourages public safety personnel and other security partners to check out its free C-IED programs and resources at https://cisa.gov/obp and obtain the latest threat insights and trends at https://tripwire.dhs.gov.