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Abstract
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The authors would first recommend that readers review the previous three review papers from 2013, 2016 and 2019 [[22], [23], [24]]. Those may have some articles on technology that laboratory managers might find useful and adaptable to their current approaches to explosives analysis and that may be of use in future real-world applications.
The international situation in 2022 is notably different from that in 2019 when the last iteration of this paper was published. There is considerably less focus on in theater devices and explosives as Allied Forces have mostly withdrawn from the Middle East and Afghanistan. Unfortunately, however, because of this withdrawal and the resulting dearth of human intelligence, people who engage in terrorist activities are less restrained in securing improvised explosives and precursors. Additionally, and dangerously, these terrorists now have access to war material left behind by withdrawing forces, including military grade explosives and munitions. A re-focused effort on traditional military high explosive detection and analysis may be needed for laboratories worldwide if these are deployed in both criminal and terrorist bombings.
Another crisis that may result in concerns for years to come for many countries is the current war in Ukraine. All wars give rise to the long-term problem of criminals and terrorists having access to excess munitions and explosives well after the war has come to a close. This was evident after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also after the wars during the breakup of former Yugoslavia. Those munitions and explosives bleed over into neighboring countries impacting the security of the region.
Beginning in 2020 the United States experienced a substantial increase in incidents of civil unrest. The criminal misuse of explosives and ignitable liquids was widespread and was recorded from large urban centers to smaller towns. While some explosives were deployed against government entities from police officers to court houses, some opportunistic individuals used the cover of riots and protests to engage in criminal bombings for monetary gain, especially by trying to breach ATM's. Almost all of the devices deployed were low explosive pyrotechnic devices and some were modified with shrapnel. Almost all of the increases in backlogs at our laboratory were from such civil unrest.
As we wrote in the last (2019) paper, "One of the most important yet difficult areas for the past ten to twenty years for the explosive analyst is the ever-changing type of explosives employed by the criminal bomber and terrorists. Restrictions on widely used commercial and military high explosives are often circumvented by the illicit production of homemade explosives. While there have been attempts to restrict chemical precursors and some oxidizers and fuels, criminal and terrorist bombings are still frequently using homemade explosives. Some of these explosive formulations are difficult to detect in chaotic and contaminated scenes, with matrices that are additionally problematic. The two biggest reasons for failure to identify a post-blast homemade explosive in some of these cases are the failure to collect samples in a timely manner and the failure to properly extract the analytes from difficult matrices. While training of first responders and others may help with the first issue, the second issue falls mostly on the explosives forensic community. There is not a lot of research in this area, but a few referenced papers do address this second issue" [24].
Introducing new techniques into the suite of analytical schemes or standard approaches has become increasingly laborious as most laboratories are now accredited, many to ISO 17025. Accreditation standards demand more data and study before a new technique can be validated and brought online by a laboratory. This even extends to more simple transitions like swapping out columns with slightly different chemistries. Yet many laboratories do not have dedicated analytical groups to do this kind of validation work. This may add to the hesitancy of laboratory managers to adopt new techniques. If the new techniques fill a crucial need or cover a gap in overall explosives coverage those hesitancies should be put aside and efforts made to complete validations.
This review of the literature will hopefully demonstrate that there are many applications in the world of explosives analysis from many fields that are of interest to the forensic laboratory manager. The authors and chemists at the ATF National Laboratory Center have spent hundreds hours of reviewing and classifying abstracts, reading papers, and selecting pertinent papers to highlight in this review. Additionally, hundreds more citations are available in the bibliography. We have drawn from explosives detection, environmental, academic, and case study articles to try to cover the range of probable areas of interest. There are still dozens of references in these areas, ranging from theoretical research to applied systems that are already in field use.
Language: en |