The fertilizer bomb

Ammonium nitrate, often used in IEDs (improvised explosive devices), is the insurgents’ weapon of choice against American troops in Afghanistan.

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Oct. 28, 2011

A military convoy passes Afghan men as they sit on a roadside next to the site of a roadside bomb explosion that hit a civilian car in Nangarhar province, east of Kabul, Afghanistan. These improvised explosive device, known as IEDs, have wounded about 3,200 American troops in 2011 alone.

Rahmat Gul / ASSOCIATED PRESS

Aug. 25, 2011

The U.S. government believes that most of the bombs killing its troops in Afghanistan are made with a chemical fertilizer produced by a single company in Pakistan, and American officials have launched an intense push for regulation. In the photo, a Pakistani dealer holds fertilizer containing ammonium nitrate in Multan, Pakistan.

Khalid Tanveer / AP

April, 1999

A vehicle packed with 400 pounds of ammonium nitrate fuel oil is detonated in this handout photo at New Mexico Tech in Socorro, N.M. The explosive product looks like laundry detergent, and insurgents pack it in plastic jugs and make blasting caps out of ballpoint pens or glass tubes full of acid.

NEW MEXICO TECH / ASSOCIATED PRESS

July 26, 2011

A Pakistani man carries sacks of fertilizer to smuggle into neighboring Afghanistan at Pakistani border town of Chaman.

Shah Khalid / AP

July 27, 2011

Sacks of fertilizer are held in wheelbarrows at Pakistani Chaman border post to be smuggled into the neighboring Afghanistan. It is reported that the Taliban uses about 480,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate a year to make bombs.

Shah Khalid / AP

March 16, 2010

A Pakistani security officer check confiscated sacks of ammonium nitrate, substance used to make explosive in Lahore, Pakistan. Police had seized a second major weapons cache in as many days.

K.M.Chaudary / ASSOCIATED PRESS

April 5, 2007

U.S. soldiers of B Company, 4th Infantry Regiment run for cover after an IED went off near Daychopan village in Zabul province, southeastern Afghanistan.

Rafiq Maqbool / ASSOCIATED PRESS

Aug. 19, 2009

Spc. Paul Pickett, center, covers Pfc. James Gordon, both of the U.S. Army's Apache Company, 2nd Battalion 87th Infantry Regiment, from the rotar wash of a landing medivac helicopter after Gordon sustained leg injuries when the armored vehicle he and six others were riding in hit an improvised explosive device in the Tangi Valley of Afghanistan's Wardak Province. It was Apache company's 48th IED in a month.

David Goldman / AP

May 22, 2011

An Afghan policeman stands guard at the scene of an explosion in Kandahar. Two police officers were injured when a motorcycle laden with explosives detonated as they tried to disarm it, the ministry said.

Allauddin Khan / ASSOCIATED PRESS

April 21, 2010

Afghan National Army soldiers handle shells to be used as explosives to destroy ammonium nitrate which was seized in Baricahb on the outskirts of Kabul.

Dar Yasin / ASSOCIATED PRESS

April 21, 2010

The Afghan National Army and police have destroyed some 3,306 pounds of the highly explosive substance seized from different shops in March 2010 after the government banned it because it can be used to make bombs.

Dar Yasin / ASSOCIATED PRESS

April 21, 2010

Afghan policemen carry shells to be used as explosives to destroy highly explosive ammonium nitrate that was seized in Baricahb, Afghanistan. Although vast majority of the fertilizer is used for farming in Pakistan, the insurgents have been able to get thier hands on it to produce powerful bombs.

Dar Yasin / ASSOCIATED PRESS

Nov. 22, 2011

Afghans walk past by wreckage of a civilian car, which was hit by a roadside bomb in Alingar district of Laghman province, east of Kabul, Afghanistan.

Rahmat Gul / ASSOCIATED PRESS

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