Iran’s ‘Knowledge Bombs’: Reverse-Engineering IEDs In Judea And Samaria

This comes as terrorists increasingly employ the tactic of IED attacks against the Israel Defense Forces. On Wednesday night, four Israeli soldiers from the elite Egoz unit were wounded by an IED during an operation in Nablus (Shechem) to secure Israeli civilian entry to Joseph’s Tomb.

The unit was part of a larger operation involving three battalions establishing a security perimeter to allow three buses filled with Jewish worshippers to reach the holy site.

The wounded soldiers were evacuated to Beilinson Hospital in Petach Tikvah with varying degrees of injury. Despite this, the buses arrived at their intended destination, underscoring the resolve of the IDF to enable freedom of worship for the pilgrims.

Destabilizing history

The IED used in the Nablus attack was locally produced, but that does not detract from the truth that Iran’s paramount goal is to transfer IED-making knowledge to the Judea and Samaria arena.

The Iranians have a history of transferring weapons technology to extend their destabilizing influence.

Their transfer of “suicide” unmanned aerial vehicles to Russia and their supply of rockets to Gaza (before Egypt sealed the Sinai border) are examples of this.

Both Hamas and Islamic Jihad have used Iranian expertise to mass-produce their own rockets in Gaza.

In the last two weeks alone, Israeli forces intercepted two attempts to smuggle in Iranian explosives. In the first instance, reported on Aug. 24, Arab Israeli citizens were caught in Lod with Claymore mine-type explosives directly linked to Hezbollah.

In the second case, just three days later, two large explosives were seized during an attempt to smuggle them from Jordan into Israel. Though it remains unclear if these explosives originated from Iran via Syria or Iraq, Iran’s involvement is palpable.