BEIRUT: Every day, Captain Bassam Bitar prepares his men for combat. Instead of using assault weapons and mortars, Bitar’s elite Internal Security Forces unit is armed with engineering degrees and advanced training to think like terrorists who would seed carnage and chaos in Lebanon.
The ISF’s explosives unit has just 15 experts and a few dozen trainees who respond to more than 4,500 calls each year.
Suspicious packages, rigged cars, post-explosion crime scene examinations are all managed by this small but dedicated squad.
“We’re in a battle with the terrorists,” Bitar told The Daily Star. “Danger follows the men [in the unit] every day.”
The delicate art of defusing bombs requires an exhaustive understanding of electrical engineering and computer science. Most men in the program have degrees in a related field, and many have participated in an anti-terrorism program in the United States. Over more than two and a half years of training, aspiring bomb squad members learn how to anticipate and block the schemes of terrorists.
“Each time we go to work, we have to think like terrorists in order to know how they set the trigger, and what they were trying to accomplish with the explosion,” Bitar said.
As technology continues to advance, terrorists have kept up to pace, using inventive new ways to wreak destruction. “There are systems that work on a timer, that employ mobile signals, infrared ... Wi-Fi or Bluetooth,” Bitar said.
“[The terrorists] are always looking to find new methods that the [bomb squad] experts don’t yet know ... We’re always following them, trying to block their systems before they explode,” he said.
This high-stakes game of cat and mouse plays out every day across the country.
As the security situation across Lebanon deteriorated over the past year, work picked up for Captain Bitar and his team. Instead of housing the entire unit in the Beirut central office, they dispatched small two or three-man teams across the country to cut the response time.
Each team is equipped with devices that detect explosive materials, equipment to safely detonate charges from a distance and perhaps most critically, a 50-kg bomb suit designed to protect bomb disposal experts in the event of a blast.
The equipment, much of which has been provided by the United States, has proved vital to safely executing missions, Bitar said.
Aside from gear and electronics expertise, the ability to work well under both physical and psychological stress is vital for members of the unit, he added. “Imagine the person in that suit: He’s carrying 50 kilos, he can’t breathe normally ... his vision is limited” by a bulky helmet, Bitar said. “He’s watching everyone flee the scene and he goes in.”
Sometimes members of the team safely detonate explosive ordnance in their original place. Often, however, the team must transport the explosive materials to an army base “in the mountains” to detonate them far away from towns and citizens, Bitar said.
Unfortunately, the gory aftermath of explosions is an all-too familiar sight for members of the unit. Flipping through a recent report documenting the Jabal Mohsen bombing last month, Bitar unblinkingly exhibits photos his men took of twisted body parts strewn across the street.
“We need to choose the best people for this job,” Bitar said. “The people who work here, they’re different. They want to help people.”
With careful vetting, top-of-the- line equipment and thorough training, Bitar has built a tight ship: In the five years that he has headed the unit, not a single member of the bomb squad has been killed in the line of duty.
Unfortunately, Bitar said the unit does not have the resources to proactively prevent explosive materials from passing into Lebanon or to determine where bombs are being constructed in the country. “If we knew where these things were being made, we could intervene, but we don’t know.”
As long as the political situation remains tense in the country, the unit will remain busy, he said.
“Politics have a huge effect on our work. If everything is good and calm in politics and if everyone is getting along, you definitely feel that our work slows down. But when the tensions are high, it has the opposite effect.”
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