President’s Policy Directive-17 Countering Improvised Explosive Devices PPD-17

COU N T ER I NG
I M PROV I SE D
E X PL OSI V E DEV ICE S

F EBRUA RY 26, 2 013

COUNTERING IMPROVISED EXPLOSIVE DEVICES
Strengthening U.S. Policy
Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) remain one of the most accessible weapons available to
terrorists and criminals to damage critical infrastructure and inflict casualties, as was
demonstrated in the attempted bombing of Northwest Flight 253 on December 25, 2009,
the October 2010 air cargo plot, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The tactics used in IED
attacks continue to evolve as our adversaries seek to overcome countermeasures. This
Administration is expanding and broadening its counter-IED focus, building upon existing policy
and strategy, which establish and implement measures to discover, prevent, protect against,
respond to, recover from, and mitigate IED attacks and their consequences at home or abroad.
We will enhance our effectiveness by:
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Leveraging, Integrating, and Aligning United States Government Efforts. The United States
Government uses its military, law enforcement, diplomatic, regulatory, intelligence, and
financial tools to counter IEDs globally. By actively and responsibly coordinating efforts
across departments and agencies, we can increase our effectiveness against IED threats
while making the best use of existing capabilities and resources.

•

Enhancing Our Focus on Protecting American Lives. IED attacks threaten American lives at
home and abroad. Overseas, we are working with partner nations to reduce the IED threat
to members of our military and diplomatic services, as well as U.S. citizens engaged in
commercial travel and trade. To better meet the IED threat at home, we will seek to
incorporate lessons learned abroad, while respecting legal and policy factors relevant to
domestic counter-IED operations.

•

Promoting Cooperation with Governmental, International, and Private Sector Partners.
Sharing meaningful information about the IED threat with partners that are familiar with
their communities increases the chance that suspicious activity will be recognized and
reported to law enforcement authorities. The United States will work with partners to
reduce the IED threat by sharing intelligence, building capacity, and developing
complementary activities.

Translating Policy into Actions
To realize these policy objectives, we will employ the following priority capabilities and enabling
technologies, which leverage existing investments, including:
1. Increasing Domestic and International Engagement. We will seek to:
• Improve public awareness of IED threats and corresponding reporting of suspicious
activity to local authorities through enhanced information sharing resources;
• Enhance information sharing with public and private sector partners on current IED
threats and preparedness measures; and

Countering Improvised Explosive Devices

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Increase global participation and partnership in dialogues on counter-IED efforts and
information sharing.

2. Effectively Exploiting Information and Materials from IED Attacks. We will enhance our
capability to identify IED networks, tactics, techniques and procedures through:
• Coordinating our IED collection and exploitation efforts, to better gather, share, and
analyze forensic, technical, and biometric information; and
• Enhancing policy, process, and mechanisms to analyze more effectively and share IED
exploitation results.
3. Advancing Our Intelligence and Information Analysis. We will improve our understanding
of technologies, trends, and networks through:
• Enhancing the reporting on and dissemination of criminal intelligence, incident
information, and suspicious activity involving explosives;
• Making counter-IED-specific intelligence resources more accessible to those who need
it;
• Conducting multi-mode data analysis of IED patterns, trends, and tactics, techniques,
and procedures to anticipate future IED threat evolutions; and
• Advancing the analytic tools available to better link information across sources,
including financial information, biometrics, movements of people and technology, and
other intelligence, in a secure manner.
4. Maintaining Our Deployable Counter-IED Resources. We will maintain our scalable and
layered counter-IED capabilities, including personnel and equipment through:
• Developing and maintaining deployable United States Government counter-IED
resources;
• Assisting international partners with the development of deployable counter-IED
capabilities; and
• Conducting exercises with deployable counter-IED resources.
5. Screening, Detecting, and Protecting Our People, Facilities, Transportation Systems,
Critical Infrastructure, as well as the Flow of Legitimate Commerce. We will continue to
develop and use advanced protection and detection technologies and capabilities by:
• Improving the performance of explosives screening, detection, and protection
technologies through prioritizing and coordinating research within the United States and
with our allies; and
• Effectively deploying and integrating these technologies and capabilities into our critical
infrastructure and transportation systems to decrease the risk of an IED attack while
facilitating legitimate trade and travel.
6. Safeguarding Explosives and Select Precursor Materials. We will enhance our ability to
identify, prevent, and interdict the illicit diversion or transport of select materials used to
manufacture IEDs through:

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Countering Improvised Explosive Devices

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Promoting mechanisms for industry to better detect, report, and prevent the
illegitimate acquisition, theft, or diversion of explosives and related materials;
Enhancing enforcement of U.S. laws regulating commerce in explosives and materials
that could be used as IED components;
Increasing global awareness of actions to mitigate the use of munitions, precursor
chemicals, and other components in IED construction;
Evaluating methods to further restrict, control, or monitor select dual-use precursors
and components; and
Coordinating domestic and international efforts to investigate, disrupt, dismantle and
arrest members of networks involved in the financing and illicit movement of IED
components.

7. Coordinating and Standardizing Training and Equipment. Based on an updated assessment
of our national counter-IED training and equipment needs and priorities, we will improve
coordination to deliver standardized training to our domestic and international partners
through:
• Incorporating the lessons learned globally, including those from Iraq and Afghanistan,
into our training and equipment requirements;
• Resourcing and implementing the Federal electronic countermeasures program to
achieve a national capability;
• Enhancing national guidelines for bomb technicians;
• Finalizing and implementing national guidelines for explosives detection canine teams;
and
• Leveraging existing technology transfer programs to address counter-IED capability gaps
at the Federal, state, and local levels.
8. Enhancing Our Operational Planning. We will develop interagency operational plans to
advance the Nation's ability to counter the use of IEDs, and establish measures to assess
overall effectiveness and progress. This will include:
• Developing and exercising a Federal counter-IED operational plan for a domestic or
transnational threat;
• Enhancing counter-IED preparedness planning for Federal, state, and local response;
and
• Evaluating and reporting annually on interagency progress toward the goals set.
The Joint Program Office for Countering IEDs, administered by the Attorney General through
the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), is an interagency group that will coordinate and track
progress across the departments and agencies toward building these capabilities. The Joint
Program Office will also provide metrics and assist departments and agencies in coordinating
their priorities.

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Countering Improvised Explosive Devices

Examples of Success
Departments and agencies are already at work implementing these policy objectives. Examples
include:
•

Increased International Engagement. The Departments of State and Homeland Security
have, working through the World Customs Organization, engaged global partners in an
effort to track and limit the flow of IED precursor materials into Afghanistan. Our allies and
partner nations have had similar success in stopping IED plots and limiting the flow of
explosives precursors by raising awareness among the public and across industries. The
United States is also raising awareness of the global IED threat within the Group of 8, and
other multilateral fora.

•

Exploiting IED Information and Materials. The Departments of Defense and Justice
adapted law enforcement investigative and forensic expertise to fit the needs of
warfighters. We are now able to use the materials generated through the exploitation of
thousands of IEDs to enhance counter-IED technologies and inform best practices and
training.

•

Safeguarding Explosive Materials. The Departments of State, the Treasury, Defense,
Justice, and Homeland Security, and the Intelligence Community are working together, with
the assistance of international partners and multilateral organizations, to stem the flow of
explosives precursors to Afghanistan and disrupt the illicit finance networks that support
the production and use of IEDs. Domestically, we continue to seek to prevent terrorists
from acquiring and converting these materials into IEDs, while maintaining access for
legitimate use. For example, a recent attempt to make explosives in West Texas was
stopped by the FBI when a chemical company reported suspicious purchases.

•

Screen, Detect, and Protect. The Department of Homeland Security uses intelligence
gathered by other departments and agencies to best position screening measures that keep
explosives out of transportation systems.

•

Coordinating and Standardizing Training. By using the intelligence and exploitation
information generated from IEDs found overseas, the FBI and the Department of Homeland
Security have updated and enhanced the training and information provided to public safety
bomb technicians, law enforcement, and first responders on how to respond to the latest
terrorist IED tactics.

Conclusion
The threat from IED use is likely to remain high in the coming decade and will continue to
evolve in response to our abilities to counter them. A whole-of-government approach that
integrates Federal, state, local, tribal, territorial, private sector, and global participation in
counter-IED activities will best position the United States to discover plots to use IEDs in the
United States, or against U.S. persons abroad, before those threats become imminent.
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