An “IED” found at a Texas bridge by two boys hunting rabbits was described by a local sheriff as a two-liter bottle filled with flammable liquid, covered with duct tape and armed by a detonator and fuse – definitely an improvised explosive device.
The boys discovered the device near Farm to Market Road 1963 close to Rosebud, 40 miles southeast of Waco, reported KCEN-TV. Falls County Constable Richard Aleman said the boys saw suspicious items under the bridge and contacted one of their parents, who is “former military personnel.”
McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara described to the Waco Tribune-Herald what authorities found after they were contacted.
“It was definitely real, definitely dangerous and could have caused great bodily injury or death if it would have exploded close to someone,” McNamara said. “It had a detonator and a fuse … and they X-rayed it and found tape to where you couldn’t see into the bottle, but it did have a flammable liquid inside of it with some shotgun shells.”
Improvised explosive devices were commonly used during the Iraq War starting in 2003, According to Homeland Security, IEDs are often a weapon of choice for criminals, vandals, terrorists, suicide bombers, and insurgents, and can take various forms, ranging from a small pipe bomb to a sophisticated device capable of causing massive damage and loss of life.