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Improvised explosive device

An improvised explosive device (IED) is a bomb constructed and deployed in ways other than in conventional military action. It may be constructed of conventional military explosives, such as an artillery shell, attached to a detonating mechanism. IEDs are commonly used as roadside bombs, or homemade bombs.

The term "IED" was coined by the British Army during the Northern Ireland conflict to refer to booby traps made by the IRA, and entered common use in the U.S. during the Iraq War.

IEDs are generally utilized in terrorist operations or in asymmetric unconventional warfare or urban warfare by insurgent guerrillas or commando forces in a theatre of operations. In the Iraq War (2003–2011), insurgents used IEDs extensively against U.S.-led forces, and by the end of 2007, IEDs were responsible for approximately 63% of coalition deaths in Iraq. They were also used in Afghanistan by insurgent groups, and caused over 66% of coalition casualties in the 2001–2021 Afghanistan War.

IEDs were also used frequently by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka during the Sri Lankan Civil War, and by Ambazonian separatists in the ongoing Anglophone Crisis.

Background

An IED is a bomb fabricated in an improvised manner incorporating destructive, lethal, noxious, pyrotechnic, or incendiary chemicals and designed to destroy or incapacitate personnel or vehicles. In some cases, IEDs are used to distract, disrupt, or delay an opposing force, facilitating another type of attack. IEDs may incorporate military or commercially sourced explosives, and often combine both types, or they may otherwise be made with homemade explosives (HME). An HME lab refers to a Homemade Explosive Lab, or the physical location where the devices are crafted.

An IED has five components: a switch (activator), an initiator (fuse), container (body), charge (explosive), and a power source (battery). An IED designed for use against armoured targets such as personnel carriers or tanks will be designed for armour penetration, by using a shaped charge that creates an explosively formed penetrator. IEDs are extremely diverse in design and may contain many types of initiators, detonators, penetrators, and explosive loads.

Antipersonnel IEDs typically also contain fragmentation-generating objects such as nails, ball bearings or even small rocks to cause wounds at greater distances than blast pressure alone could. In the conflicts of the 21st century, anti-personnel improvised explosive devices (IED) have partially replaced conventional or military landmines as the source of injury to dismounted (pedestrian) soldiers and civilians. These injuries were reported in BMJ Open to be far worse with IEDs than with landmines resulting in multiple limb amputations and lower body mutilation. This combination of injuries has been given the name "Dismounted Complex Blast Injury" and is thought to be the worst survivable injury ever seen in war.

IEDs are triggered by various methods, including remote control, infrared or magnetic triggers, pressure-sensitive bars or trip wires (victim-operated). In some cases, multiple IEDs are wired together in a daisy chain to attack a convoy of vehicles spread out along a roadway.

IEDs made by inexperienced designers or with substandard materials may fail to detonate, and in some cases, they detonate on either the maker or the placer of the device. Some groups, however, have been known to produce sophisticated devices constructed with components scavenged from conventional munitions and standard consumer electronics components, such as mobile phones, consumer-grade two-way radios, washing machine timers, pagers, or garage door openers. The sophistication of an IED depends on the training of the designer and the tools and materials available.

IEDs may use artillery shells or conventional high-explosive charges as their explosive load as well as homemade explosives. However, the threat exists that toxic chemical, biological, or radioactive (dirty bomb) material may be added to a device, thereby creating other life-threatening effects beyond the shrapnel, concussive blasts and fire normally associated with bombs. Chlorine liquid has been added to IEDs in Iraq, producing clouds of chlorine gas.

A vehicle-borne IED, or VBIED, is a military term for a car bomb or truck bomb but can be any type of transportation such as a bicycle, motorcycle, donkey (DBIED ), etc. They are typically employed by insurgents, in particular ISIS, and can carry a relatively large payload. They can also be detonated from a remote location. VBIEDs can create additional shrapnel through the destruction of the vehicle itself and use vehicle fuel as an incendiary weapon. The act of a person's being in this vehicle and detonating it is known as an SVBIED suicide.

Of increasing popularity among insurgent forces in Iraq is the house-borne IED, or HBIED, from the common military practice of clearing houses; insurgents rig an entire house to detonate and collapse shortly after a clearing squad has entered.

By warhead
The Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms (JCS Pub 1-02) includes two definitions for improvised devices: improvised explosive devices (IED) and improvised nuclear device (IND). These definitions address the Nuclear and Explosive in CBRNe. That leaves chemical, biological and radiological undefined. Four definitions have been created to build on the structure of the JCS definition. Terms have been created to standardize the language of first responders and members of the military and to correlate the operational picture.

Explosive
A device placed or fabricated in an improvised manner incorporating destructive, lethal, noxious, pyrotechnic, or incendiary chemicals and designed to destroy, incapacitate, harass, or distract. It may incorporate military stores, but is normally devised from non-military components.

Explosively formed penetrator/projectiles (EFPs)

IEDs have been deployed in the form of explosively formed projectiles (EFP), a special type of shaped charge that is effective at long standoffs from the target (50 meters or more), however they are not accurate at long distances. This is because of how they are produced. The large "slug" projected from the explosion has no stabilization because it has no tail fins and it does not spin like a bullet from a rifle. Without this stabilization the trajectory can not be accurately determined beyond 50 meters. An EFP is essentially a cylindrical shaped charge with a machined concave metal disc (often copper) in front, pointed inward. The force of the shaped charge turns the disc into a high velocity slug, capable of penetrating the armor of most vehicles in Iraq.

Directionally focused charges
Directionally focused charges (also known as directionally focused fragmentary charges depending on the construction) are very similar to EFPs, with the main difference being that the top plate is usually flat and not concave. It also is not made with machined copper but much cheaper cast or cut metal. When made for fragmentation, the contents of the charge are usually nuts, bolts, ball bearings and other similar shrapnel products and explosive. If it only consists of the flat metal plate, it is known as a platter charge, serving a similar role as an EFP with reduced effect but easier construction.

Chemical
A device incorporating the toxic attributes of chemical materials designed to result in the dispersal of toxic chemical materials for the purpose of creating a primary patho-physiological toxic effect (morbidity and mortality), or secondary psychological effect (causing fear and behavior modification) on a larger population. Such devices may be fabricated in a completely improvised manner or may be an improvised modification to an existing weapon.

Biological
A device incorporating biological materials designed to result in the dispersal of vector borne biological material for the purpose of creating a primary patho-physiological toxic effect (morbidity and mortality), or secondary psychological effect (causing fear and behavior modification) on a larger population.

Incendiary
A device making use of exothermic chemical reactions designed to result in the rapid spread of fire for the purpose of creating a primary patho-physiological effect (morbidity and mortality), or secondary psychological effect (causing fear and behavior modification) on a larger population or it may be used with the intent of gaining a tactical advantage. Such devices may be fabricated in a completely improvised manner or may be an improvised modification to an existing weapon. A common type of this is the Molotov cocktail.

Radiological
A speculative device incorporating radioactive materials designed to result in the dispersal of radioactive material for the purpose of area denial and economic damage, and/or for the purpose of creating a primary patho-physiological toxic effect (morbidity and mortality), or secondary psychological effect (causing fear and behavior modification) on a larger population. Such devices may be fabricated in a completely improvised manner or may be an improvised modification to an existing nuclear weapon. Also called a Radiological Dispersion Device (RDD) or "dirty bomb".

Nuclear
Improvised nuclear device of most likely gun-type or implosion-type.

Car

A vehicle may be laden with explosives, set to explode by remote control or by a passenger/driver, commonly known as a car bomb or vehicle-borne IED (VBIED, pronounced vee-bid). On occasion the driver of the car bomb may have been coerced into delivery of the vehicle under duress, a situation known as a proxy bomb. Distinguishing features are low-riding vehicles with excessive weight, vehicles with only one passenger, and ones where the interior of the vehicles look as if they have been stripped down and built back up. Car bombs can carry thousands of pounds of explosives and may be augmented with shrapnel to increase fragmentation.

ISIS has used truck bombs with devastating effects.

Boat (WBIED)
Water-borne Improvised Explosive Devices (WBIED), i.e. boats carrying explosives, can be used against ships and areas connected to water.

An early example of this type was the Japanese Shinyo suicide boats during World War II. The boats were filled with explosives and attempted to ram Allied ships, sometimes successfully, having sunk or severely damaged several American ships by war's end. Suicide bombers used a boat-borne IED to attack the USS Cole; US and UK troops have also been killed by boat-borne IEDs in Iraq. The Tamil Tigers Sea Tigers have also been known to use SWBIEDs during the Sri Lankan Civil War.

WBIEDs have been used in the Red Sea.

Animal
Monkeys and war pigs were used as incendiaries around 1000 AD. More famously the "anti-tank dog" and "bat bomb" were developed during World War II. In recent times, a two-year-old child and seven other people were killed by explosives strapped to a horse in the town of Chita in Colombia. The carcasses of certain animals were also used to conceal explosive devices by the Iraqi insurgency.

Collar
IEDs strapped to the necks of farmers have been used on at least three occasions by guerrillas in Colombia, as a way of extortion. American pizza delivery man Brian Douglas Wells was killed in 2003 by an explosive fastened to his neck, purportedly under duress from the maker of the bomb. In 2011 a schoolgirl in Sydney, Australia had a suspected collar bomb attached to her by an attacker in her home. The device was removed by police after a ten-hour operation and proved to be a hoax.

Suicide
Suicide bombing usually refers to an individual wearing explosives and detonating them to kill others including themselves, the bomber will conceal explosives on and around their person, commonly using a vest, and will use a timer or some other trigger to detonate the explosives. The logic behind such attacks is the belief that an IED delivered by a human has a greater chance of achieving success than any other method of attack. In addition, there is the psychological impact of child soldiers prepared to deliberately sacrifice themselves for their cause.

Surgically implanted
In May 2012 American counter-terrorism officials leaked their acquisition of documents describing the preparation and use of surgically implanted improvised explosive devices. The devices were designed to evade detection. The devices were described as containing no metal, so they could not be detected by X-rays.

Security officials referred to bombs being surgically implanted into suicide bombers' "love handles".

According to the Daily Mirror UK security officials at MI-6 asserted that female bombers could travel undetected carrying the explosive chemicals in otherwise standard breast implants. The bomber would blow up the implanted explosives by injecting a chemical trigger.

Robot
Robots could also be used to carry explosives. First such documented case was during the aftermath of 2016 shooting of Dallas police officers when a bomb disposal robot was used to deliver explosives to kill Micah Xavier Johnson, who was hiding in a place inaccessible to police snipers. As well, drones carrying explosives were used in a suspected assassination attempt against Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro in 2018.

Tunnel
ISIS and Al-Nusra have used bombs detonated in tunnels dug under targets.

Improvised rocket
In 2008, rocket-propelled IEDs, dubbed Improvised Rocket Assisted Munitions, Improvised Rocket Assisted Mortars and (IRAM) by the military, came to be employed in numbers against U.S. forces in Iraq. They have been described as propane tanks packed with explosives and powered by 107 mm rockets. They are similar to some Provisional IRA barrack buster mortars. New types of IRAMs including Volcano IRAM and Elephant Rockets, are used during the Syrian Civil War.

Improvised mortar
Improvised mortars have been used by many insurgent groups including during the civil war in Syria and Boko Haram insurgency. IRA used improvised mortars called barrack busters.

Improvised artillery including hell cannons are used by rebel forces during Syrian Civil War.

Wire
Command-wire improvised, explosive devices (CWIED) use an electrical firing cable that affords the user complete control over the device right up until the moment of initiation.

Radio
The trigger for a radio-controlled improvised explosive device (RCIED) is controlled by radio link. The device is constructed so that the receiver is connected to an electrical firing circuit and the transmitter operated by the perpetrator at a distance. A signal from the transmitter causes the receiver to trigger a firing pulse that operates the switch. Usually the switch fires an initiator; however, the output may also be used to remotely arm an explosive circuit. Often the transmitter and receiver operate on a matched coding system that prevents the RCIED from being initiated by spurious radio frequency signals or jamming. An RCIED can be triggered from any number of different radio-frequency based mechanisms including handheld remote control transmitters, car alarms, wireless door bells, cell phones, pagers and portable two-way radios, including those designed for the UHF PMR446, FRS, and GMRS services.

Mobile phone
A radio-controlled IED (RCIED) incorporating a mobile phone that is modified and connected to an electrical firing circuit. Mobile phones operate in the UHF band in line of sight with base transceiver station (BTS) antennae sites. In the common scenario, receipt of a paging signal by phone is sufficient to initiate the IED firing circuit.

Victim-operated
Victim-operated improvised explosive devices (VOIED), also known as booby traps, are designed to function upon contact with a victim. VOIED switches are often well hidden from the victim or disguised as innocuous everyday objects. They are operated by means of movement. Switching methods include tripwire, pressure mats, spring-loaded release, push, pull or tilt. Common forms of VOIED include the under-vehicle IED (UVIED), improvised landmines, and mail bombs.

Infrared
The British accused Iran and Hezbollah of teaching Iraqi fighters to use infrared light beams to trigger IEDs. As the occupation forces became more sophisticated in interrupting radio signals around their convoys, the insurgents adapted their triggering methods. In some cases, when a more advanced method was disrupted, the insurgents regressed to using uninterruptible means, such as hard wires from the IED to detonator; however, this method is much harder to effectively conceal. It later emerged however, that these "advanced" IEDs were actually old IRA technology. The infrared beam method was perfected by the IRA in the early 1990s after it acquired the technology from a botched undercover British Army operation. Many of the IEDs being used against the invading coalition forces in Iraq were originally developed by the British Army who unintentionally passed the information on to the IRA. The IRA taught their techniques to the Palestine Liberation Organisation and the knowledge spread to Iraq.

Counterefforts

Counter-IED efforts are done primarily by military, law enforcement, diplomatic, financial, and intelligence communities and involve a comprehensive approach to countering the threat networks that employ IEDs, not just efforts to defeat the devices themselves.

Detection and disarmament
Because the components of these devices are being used in a manner not intended by their manufacturer, and because the method of producing the explosion is limited only by the science and imagination of the perpetrator, it is not possible to follow a step-by-step guide to detect and disarm a device that an individual has only recently developed. As such, explosive ordnance disposal (IEDD) operators must be able to fall back on their extensive knowledge of the first principles of explosives and ammunition, to try and deduce what the perpetrator has done, and only then to render it safe and dispose of or exploit the device.

Beyond this, as the stakes increase and IEDs are emplaced not only to achieve the direct effect, but to deliberately target IEDD operators and cordon personnel, the IEDD operator needs to have a deep understanding of tactics to ensure they are neither setting up any of their team or the cordon troops for an attack, nor walking into one themselves. The presence of chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear (CBRN) material in an IED requires additional precautions. As with other missions, the EOD operator provides the area commander with an assessment of the situation and of support needed to complete the mission.

Military and law enforcement personnel from around the world have developed a number of render-safe procedures (RSPs) to deal with IEDs. RSPs may be developed as a result of direct experience with devices or by applied research designed to counter the threat. The supposed effectiveness of IED jamming systems, including vehicle- and personally-mounted systems, has caused IED technology to essentially regress to command-wire detonation methods. These are physical connections between the detonator and explosive device and cannot be jammed. However, these types of IEDs are more difficult to emplace quickly, and are more readily detected.

Military forces and law enforcement from India, Canada, United Kingdom, Israel, Spain, and the United States are at the forefront of counter-IED efforts, as all have direct experience in dealing with IEDs used against them in conflict or terrorist attacks. From the research and development side, programs such as the new Canadian Unmanned Systems Challenge will bring student groups together to invent an unmanned device to both locate IEDs and pinpoint the insurgents.

Historical use
The fougasse was improvised for centuries, eventually inspiring factory-made land mines. Ernst Jünger mentions in his war memoir the systematic use of IEDs and booby traps to cover the retreat of German troops at the Somme region during World War I. Another early example of coordinated large-scale use of IEDs was the Belarusian Rail War launched by Belarusian guerrillas against the Germans during World War II. Both command-detonated and delayed-fuse IEDs were used to derail thousands of German trains during 1943–1944.

Afghanistan

Starting six months before the invasion of Afghanistan by the USSR on 27 December 1979, the Afghan Mujahideen were supplied by the CIA, among others, with large quantities of military supplies. Among those supplies were many types of anti-tank mines. The insurgents often removed the explosives from several foreign anti-tank mines, and combined the explosives in tin cooking-oil cans for a more powerful blast. By combining the explosives from several mines and placing them in tin cans, the insurgents made them more powerful, but sometimes also easier to detect by Soviet sappers using mine detectors. After an IED was detonated, the insurgents often used direct-fire weapons such as machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades to continue the attack.

Afghan insurgents operating far from the border with Pakistan did not have a ready supply of foreign anti-tank mines. They preferred to make IEDs from Soviet unexploded ordnance. The devices were rarely triggered by pressure fuses. They were almost always remotely detonated. Since the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, the Taliban and its supporters have used IEDs against NATO and Afghan military and civilian vehicles. This has become the most common method of attack against NATO forces, with IED attacks increasing consistently year on year.

A brigade commander said that sniffer dogs are the most reliable way of detecting IEDs. However, statistical evidence gathered by the US Army Maneuver Support Center at Fort Leonard Wood, MO shows that the dogs are not the most effective means of detecting IEDs. The U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division was the first unit to introduce explosive detection dogs in southern Afghanistan. In less than two years the dogs discovered 15 tons of illegal munitions, IED's, and weapons.

In July 2012 it was reported that "sticky bombs", magnetically adhesive IED's that were prevalent in the Iraq War, showed up in Afghanistan. By 2021 there was at least one sticky bomb attack a day in Kabul. They are used in both traditional assassinations and targeted killings and as terror weapons against the population at large.

In November 2013 one of the largest IEDs constructed was intercepted near Gardez City in Eastern Afghanistan. The 61,000 pounds of explosives was hidden under what appeared to be piles of wood. By comparison, the truck bomb that all but razed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City and killed 168 people in 1995 weighed less than 5,000 pounds. A United States Army Corps of Engineers officer assigned to the nearby FOB Lightning analyzed the potential blast damage, which resulted in closing FOB Goode due to its proximity to the highway.

ISAF troops stationed in Afghanistan and other IED prone areas of operation would commonly "BIP" (blow in place) IED's and other explosives that were considered too dangerous to defuse.

Egypt
IEDs are being used by insurgents against government forces during the insurgency in Egypt (2013–present) and the Sinai insurgency.

India
IEDs are increasingly being used by Maoists in India.

On 13 July 2011, three IEDs were used by the Insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir to carry out a coordinated attack on the city of Mumbai, killing 19 people and injuring 130 more.

On 21 February 2013, two IEDs were used to carry out bombings in the Indian city of Hyderabad. The bombs exploded in Dilsukhnagar, a crowded shopping area of the city, within 150 metres of each other.

On 17 April 2013, two kilos of explosives used in Bangalore bomb blast at Malleshwaram area, leaving 16 injured and no fatalities. Intelligence sources have said the bomb was an Improvised Explosive Device or IED.

On 21 May 2014, Indinthakarai village supporters of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant were targeted by opponents using over half a dozen crude "country-made bombs". It was further reported that there had been at least four similar bombings in Tamil Nadu during the preceding year.

On 28 December 2014, a minor explosion took place near the Coconut Grove restaurant at Church Street in Bangalore on Sunday around 8:30 pm. One woman was killed and another injured in the blast.

During the 2016 Pathankot attack, several casualties came from IEDs.

On 14 February 2019 in 2019 Pulwama attack, several casualties were reported due to IED blast.

On 29 October 2023, a series of IED explosions were used to kill 2 attendees at a Jehovah's Witnesses Convention in Kalamassery, India.

Iraq
In the 2003–2011 Iraq War, IEDs have been used extensively against Coalition forces and by the end of 2007 they have been responsible for at least 64% of Coalition deaths in Iraq.

Since the detonation of the first IED in Iraq in 2003, more than 81,000 IED attacks have occurred in the country, killing and wounding 21,200 Americans.

Beginning in July 2003, the Iraqi insurgency used IEDs to target invading coalition vehicles. According to The Washington Post, 64% of U.S. deaths in Iraq occurred due to IEDs. A French study showed that in Iraq, from March 2003 to November 2006, on a global 3,070 deaths in the US-led invading coalition soldiers, 1,257 were caused by IEDs, i.e. 41%. That is to say more than in the "normal fights" (1027 dead, 34%). Insurgents now use the bombs to target not only invading coalition vehicles but Iraqi police as well.

Common locations for placing these bombs on the ground include animal carcasses, soft drink cans, and boxes. Typically, they explode underneath or to the side of the vehicle to cause the maximum amount of damage. However, as vehicle armour was improved on military vehicles, insurgents began placing IEDs in elevated positions such as on road signs, utility poles, or trees, to hit less protected areas.

IEDs in Iraq may be made with artillery or mortar shells or with varying amounts of bulk or homemade explosives. Early during the Iraq war, the bulk explosives were often obtained from stored munitions bunkers to include stripping landmines of their explosives.

Despite the increased armor, IEDs are killing military personnel and civilians with greater frequency. May 2007 was the deadliest month for IED attacks thus far, with a reported 89 of the 129 invading coalition casualties coming from an IED attack. According to the Pentagon, 250,000 tons (out of 650,000 tons total) of Iraqi heavy ordnance were looted, providing a large supply of ammunition for the insurgents.

In October 2005, the UK government charged that Iran was supplying insurgents with the technological know-how to make shaped charge IEDs. Both Iranian and Iraqi government officials denied the allegations.

During the Iraqi Civil War (2014–2017), ISIL has made extensive use of suicide VBIEDs, often driven by children, elderly and disabled.

On August 27, 2023, Israeli security forces successfully foiled an attempt to smuggle Iranian-made explosives into Israel from Jordan. The thwarted smuggling operation in the Jordan Valley aimed to supply terror groups in the West Bank with explosives. Counter-smuggling efforts along the border have led to increased seizures of weapons and explosive devices.

Ireland and the United Kingdom
From 1912-1913, the Suffragettes utilised IEDs in the Suffragette bombing and arson campaign.

Throughout the Troubles, the Provisional Irish Republican Army made extensive use of IEDs in their 1969–97 campaign, much of which were made in the Republic of Ireland. They used barrack buster mortars and remote-controlled IEDs. Members of the IRA developed and counter-developed devices and tactics. IRA bombs became highly sophisticated, featuring anti-handling devices such as a mercury tilt switch or microswitches. These devices would detonate the bomb if it was moved in any way. Typically, the safety-arming device used was a clockwork Memopark timer, which armed the bomb up to 60 minutes after it was placed by completing an electrical circuit supplying power to the anti-handling device. Depending on the particular design (e.g., boobytrapped briefcase or car bomb) an independent electrical circuit supplied power to a conventional timer set for the intended time delay, e.g. 40 minutes. However, some electronic delays developed by IRA technicians could be set to accurately detonate a bomb weeks after it was hidden, which is what happened in the Brighton hotel bomb attack of 1984. Initially, bombs were detonated either by timer or by simple command wire. Later, bombs could be detonated by radio control. Initially, simple servos from radio-controlled aircraft were used to close the electrical circuit and supply power to the detonator. After the British developed jammers, IRA technicians introduced devices that required a sequence of pulsed radio codes to arm and detonate them. These were harder to jam.

The IRA as well as Ulster loyalist paramilitaries have also utilized less sophisticated devices, such as homemade grenades crudely thrown at the target. These are sometimes called "blast bombs".

Roadside bombs were extensively used by the IRA. Typically, a roadside bomb was placed in a drain or culvert along a rural road and detonated by remote control when British security forces vehicles were passing, as with the case of the 1979 Warrenpoint ambush. As a result of the use of these bombs, the British military stopped transport by road in areas such as South Armagh, and used helicopter transport instead to avoid the danger.

Most IEDs used commercial or homemade explosives made in the Republic of Ireland, with ingredients such as gelignite and ANFO either stolen in construction sites or provided for by supporters in the South, although the use of Semtex-H smuggled in from Libya in the 1980s was also common from the mid-1980s onward. Bomb Disposal teams from 321 EOD manned by Ammunition Technicians were deployed in those areas to deal with the IED threat. The IRA also used secondary devices to catch British reinforcements sent in after an initial blast as occurred in the Warrenpoint Ambush. Between 1970 and 2005, the IRA detonated 19,000 IEDs in the Northern Ireland and Britain, an average of one every 17 hours for three and a half decades, arguably making it "the biggest terrorist bombing campaign in history".

In the early 1970s, at the height of the IRA campaign, the British Army unit tasked with rendering safe IEDs, 321 EOD, sustained significant casualties while engaged in bomb disposal operations. This mortality rate was far higher than other high risk occupations such as deep sea diving, and a careful review was made of how men were selected for EOD operations. The review recommended bringing in psychometric testing of soldiers to ensure those chosen had the correct mental preparation for high risk bomb disposal duties.

The IRA came up with ever more sophisticated designs and deployments of IEDs. Booby Trap or Victim Operated IEDs (VOIEDs), became commonplace. The IRA engaged in an ongoing battle to gain the upper hand in electronic warfare with remote controlled devices. The rapid changes in development led 321 EOD to employ specialists from DERA (now Dstl, an agency of the MOD), the Royal Signals, and Military Intelligence. This approach by the British army to fighting the IRA in Northern Ireland led to the development and use of most of the modern weapons, equipment and techniques now used by EOD Operators throughout the rest of the world today.

The bomb disposal operations were led by Ammunition Technicians and Ammunition Technical Officers from 321 EOD, and were trained at the Felix Centre at the Army School of Ammunition.

Israel
IEDs have been used in many attacks by Palestinian militants and continue to be used in recent attacks.

Lebanon
The Lebanese National Resistance Front, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, other resistance groups in Lebanon, and later Hezbollah, made extensive use of IEDs to resist Israeli forces after Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Israel withdrew from Beirut, Northern Lebanon, and Mount Lebanon in 1985, whilst maintaining its occupation of Southern Lebanon. Hezbollah frequently used IEDs to attack Israeli military forces in this area up until the Israeli withdrawal, and the end of the invasion of Lebanon in May 2000.

One such bomb killed Israeli Brigadier General Erez Gerstein on 28 February 1999, the highest-ranking Israeli to die in Lebanon since Yekutiel Adam's death in 1982.

Also in the 2006 War in Lebanon, a Merkava Mark II tank was hit by a pre-positioned Hezbollah IED, killing all 4 IDF servicemen on board, the first of two IEDs to damage a Merkava tank.

Libya
Homemade IEDs are used extensively during the post-civil war violence in Libya, mostly in the city of Benghazi against police stations, cars or foreign embassies.

Nepal
IEDs were also widely used in the 10-years long civil war of the Maoists in Nepal, ranging from those bought from illicit groups in India and China, to self-made devices. Typically used devices were pressure cooker bombs, socket bombs, pipe bombs, bucket bombs, etc. The devices were used more for the act of terrorizing the urban population rather than for fatal causes, placed in front of governmental offices, street corners or road sides. Mainly, the home-made IEDs were responsible for destruction of majority of structures targeted by the Maoists and assisted greatly in spreading terror among the public.

Nigeria
Boko Haram are using IEDs during their insurgency.

Pakistan
Taliban and other insurgent groups use IEDs against police, military, security forces, and civilian targets.

Russia
IEDs have also been popular in Chechnya, where Russian forces were engaged in fighting with rebel elements. While no concrete statistics are available on this matter, bombs have accounted for many Russian deaths in both the First Chechen War (1994–1996) and the Second (1999–2009).

Somalia
Al Shabaab is using IEDs during the Somali Civil War.

Syria
During the Syrian Civil War, militant insurgents were using IEDs to attack buses, cars, trucks, tanks and military convoys. Additionally, the Syrian Air Force has used barrel bombs to attack targets in cities and other areas. Such barrel bombs consist of barrels filled with high explosives, oil, and shrapnel, and are dropped from helicopters.

Along with mines and IEDs, ISIL also used VBIEDs in Syria, including during 2017 Aleppo suicide car bombing. See also: Improvised artillery in the Syrian civil war.

Uganda
On 16 November 2021, suicide bombers set off two powerful explosions in the center of Uganda's capital Kampala during rush hour in an attack later claimed by Islamic State. There have been a number of bomb explosions in 2021. In October, a 20-year-old waitress was killed after a device, left in a shopping bag, detonated in a bar in the city. Days later several people were injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a bus near Kampala.

United States
In the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols built an IED with ammonium nitrate fertilizer, nitromethane, and stolen commercial explosives in a rental truck, with sandbags used to concentrate the explosive force in the desired direction. McVeigh detonated it next to the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, killing 168 people, 19 of whom were children.

High school students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold used multiple IEDs during the Columbine High School massacre on 20 April 1999, including two large propane bombs that were placed in the cafeteria, powerful enough to kill or injure everyone inside the room, along with pipe bombs, Molotov cocktails, and also two car bombs, designed to attack first responders and news reporters responding to the initial bombing. Both propane bombs and both car bombs failed to detonate correctly. They then went on to shoot and kill 13 people before committing suicide. If all bombs detonated, there could have been hundreds killed in the massacre, but nobody was injured by any of the explosives during the massacre. The pair had planned to exceed the death count during the Oklahoma City bombing four years earlier.

In January 2011, a shaped pipe bomb was discovered and defused at a Martin Luther King Jr. memorial march in Spokane, Washington. The FBI said that the bomb was specifically designed to cause maximum harm as the explosive device was, according to the Los Angeles Times, packed with fishing weights covered in rat poison, and may have been racially motivated. No one was injured during the event.

On 15 April 2013, as the annual Boston Marathon race was concluding, two bombs were detonated seconds apart close to the finish line. Initial FBI response indicated suspicion of IED pressure cooker bombs.

On 17–19 September 2016, several explosions occurred in Manhattan and New Jersey. The sources of the explosions were all found to be IEDs of various types, such as pressure cooker bombs and pipe bombs.

Many IED-related arrests are made each year in circumstances where the plot was foiled before the device was deployed, or the device exploded but no one was injured.

A number of deaths and property damage occurring during gender reveal parties have been caused by the detonation of improvised explosive devices. These include the 2017 Sawmill Fire, which was started by the detonation of a mass of tannerite intended to disperse coloured powder, and an incident in 2019 where an IED similarly designed to release powder exploded in a manner similar to a pipe bomb, killing a 56-year-old woman after shrapnel struck her in the head.

Ukraine
IEDs are in use in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and have also been used there for assassinations.

Vietnam
IEDs were used during the Vietnam War by the Viet Cong against land- and river-borne vehicles as well as personnel. They were commonly constructed using materials from unexploded American ordnance. Thirty-three percent of U.S. casualties in Vietnam and twenty-eight percent of deaths were officially attributed to mines; these figures include losses caused by both IEDs and commercially manufactured mines.

Yemen
Houthis are using IEDs against Saudi-led coalition and Hadi's forces during Yemeni Civil War (2015–present), Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen and Saudi–Yemeni border conflict.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and ISIL in Yemen are also known to use IEDs.

In popular culture
The film The Hurt Locker follows an Iraq War Explosive Ordnance Disposal team who are targeted by insurgents and shows their psychological reactions to the stress of combat.

title: Improvised explosive device


text:
User:4lex

I'm Alejandro Gaita Ariño. I live in Sedaví, Spain. I work in the Universitat de València, in the Molecular Science Institute. My scientific interests are quantum chemistry (and maybe quantum computation or some nanotechnology-oriented theoretical research in a near future). I work a lot with linux and spend a lot of time editing with vim, which are my OS and text editor of choice, and I enjoy it. I like to advocate free software, free music and human rights.

I was active at es.wikipedia for a few months in 2004, and then again in 2010. I'm back here in 2017 to supervise the progress of a student assignment project, since I acted as a teacher for a tiny course on writing.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: User:4lex


text:
Naked Lunch

Naked Lunch (first published as The Naked Lunch) is a 1959 novel by American Beat generation writer William S. Burroughs. The novel does not follow a clear linear plot, but is instead structured as a series of non-chronological "routines". Many of these routines follow William Lee, an opioid addict who travels to the surreal city of Interzone and begins working for the organization "Islam Inc."

Burroughs wrote Naked Lunch while living in the Tangier International Zone, which inspired the book's Interzone setting. There, he witnessed escalating tensions between European powers and the Moroccan Nationalist movement, which are reflected in Interzone's fictional political struggles. Burroughs also struggled with opioid addiction, which the novel describes extensively, although critics disagree whether the novel uses opioids as a metaphor for broader forms of control.

The novel was highly controversial for its depictions of drug use, sadomasochism, and body horror, including a famous description of a man's talking anus taking over his body. The book was considered obscene by the US Post Office, the state of Massachusetts, and the city of Los Angeles, each leading to separate legal challenges. In the Massachusetts trial, now recognized as a landmark censorship case, defense attorney Edward de Grazia called writers such as Allen Ginsberg, John Ciardi, and Norman Mailer to testify to the book's literary merit. Although the court initially ruled the book was in fact obscene, this decision was overturned by the state Supreme Court, which allowed the book to be sold.

Naked Lunch has received a divisive critical response. The book's admirers have compared it to the satires of Jonathan Swift and the religious works of Dante Aligheri and Hieronymous Bosch. Its detractors have compared it to pornography, often calling it monotonous and boring. The book has been considered dystopian science fiction, postmodern, parodic, and a Picaresque. Its experimental techniques have been highly influential on rock music and the cyberpunk genre. Naked Lunch is considered one of the defining texts of the Beat Generation, alongside On The Road and Howl.

Background

In 1923, European powers established the Tangier International Zone in Northern Morocco. To ensure the area's neutrality, the Zone was overseen by representatives from multiple European nations alongside the sultan of Morocco. This government was unable to effectively regulate drugs or prostitution, and American residents were not subject to Moroccan laws.

William S. Burroughs moved to the Tangier International Zone in 1954, shortly after the publication of his first novel Junkie. Burroughs was attracted by the zone's reputation for allowing drug use and homosexuality, as portrayed in the works of Paul Bowles, and declared his intention to "steep myself in vice". Bowles himself briefly appears in Naked Lunch under the name Andrew Keif. In Tangier, Burroughs became severely addicted to Eukodol, eventually using the drug every two hours. He had previously been addicted to heroin while writing Junkie. Burroughs also began a sexual relationship with a teenage boy named Kiki, which would last until Kiki's death in September 1957.

In May 1954, Burroughs began work on what would become Naked Lunch. He mailed his early drafts to his friends Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, who were the core members of the Beat generation along with Burroughs himself. In a letter to Ginsberg, Burroughs explicitly identified the novel's Interzone as a stand-in for the Tangier International Zone.

While living in Tangier, Burroughs witnessed violent clashes between Moroccan nationalists and French authorities over its political status. Burroughs did not take a strong stance on the conflict, at one point calling himself "the most politically neutral man in Africa". He defended the riots as just and denounced the brutality of European imperialism, but worried about the impact of Islamic rule on individual freedom.

In 1955, Burroughs attempted to quit Eukodol by checking himself into Benchimol Hospital, where his experiences helped inspire the character of Dr Benway. In 1956, Burroughs successfully mitigated his drug dependency using apomorphine. Burroughs replaced his opioid use with cannabis, and continued writing sections of the novel and mailing them to Ginsberg. Burroughs later stated he "wrote nearly the whole of Naked Lunch on cannabis".

In early 1957, Kerouac and Ginsberg visited Burroughs in Tangier, where they helped Burroughs type his manuscript and assemble the fragments he had mailed them over the years. However, Ginsberg worried the lack of character development or a clear narrative would make the book impossible to publish. That summer, Burroughs spent three weeks in Copenhagen, which inspired additional sections of the novel set in "Freeland".

Publication history and legal challenges
In 1957, Allen Ginsberg submitted the Naked Lunch manuscript to Olympia Press, which had a reputation for publishing controversial novels such as Tropic of Cancer and Lolita. Olympia rejected the manuscript, arguing that it was inaccessible and lacked structure. Ginsberg then sent the manuscript to Irving Rosenthal, editor of the Chicago Review. Rosenthal published excerpts from the novel in the Review's Spring 1958 and Autumn 1958 issues. Jack Mabley, a columnist for the Chicago Daily News, publicly criticized the Chicago Review for publishing "obscenity". In response, the University of Chicago insisted that material from Burroughs and Jack Kerouac could not appear in the upcoming Winter issue. Irving Rosenthal resigned from the Review and founded a new literary magazine with Pete Carroll called Big Table, which published the suppressed material in its first issue.

Post Office hearing
Rosenthal and Carroll planned to mail the first issue of Big Table in March 1959. However, the US Post Office considered the magazine obscene, which made it un-mailable under the Comstock laws. On June 4th, 1959, the Post Office launched a formal hearing over Big Table's obscenity, with a particular focus on Burroughs' Ten Episodes from Naked Lunch and a short story by Jack Keruoac titled "Old Angel Midnight".

Joel Sprayregen, Big Table's attorney, advocated for the magazine's literary value and insisted it was not obscene under the criteria established in Roth v. United States. Pete Carroll, the magazine's co-founder, testified that he considered Burroughs a satirist in the tradition of Jonathan Swift and Nathanael West and that his social criticism required vulgar language. William Duvall, the hearing examiner, admitted that Burroughs' work had some "intelligible satire", but felt its vulgarity outweighed any literary merit. He ruled that the magazine was in fact obscene and could not be mailed.

In February 1960, Big Table filed a federal complaint, arguing that the Post Office's decision violated the First Amendment. On June 30, 1960, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois overturned the Post Office's findings. The Post Office did not appeal this decision.

European and American publication
Inspired by the attention around Big Table's excerpts, Olympia Press reconsidered its rejection and published the novel. Olympia first published the English-language Naked Lunch in France in July 1959.

Grove Press bought the American publication rights, and initially planned to exclude the chapters describing Hassan's "Rumpus Room" and A.J.'s party. Burroughs himself had called those sections "pornographic" and expected they would be cut from a US release, although he also felt they constituted a political argument against capital punishment. Ultimately, Grove decided to publish the novel uncensored, encouraged by the praise the book had received from Norman Mailer and Mary McCarthy. Naked Lunch was first published in the US on November 20, 1962, and sold over 14,000 copies in the first 4 months. The US edition included a new appendix by Burroughs titled "Deposition: Testimony Concerning a Sickness". Burroughs originally wrote the deposition in response to a legal hearing in Paris; the text asserts that he and his novel do not promote the use of drugs. Allen Ginsberg criticized this appendix; he found it overly moralizing and felt Burroughs was avoiding responsibility for his own work.

In 1962, the novel was translated into German, but the publishers intentionally left the most explicit sections in untranslated English. In 1964, it was published in the United Kingdom by John Calder. Calder avoided selling the book to wholesalers and only distributed small print runs at a high price to avoid legal attention, and successfully avoided prosecution.

Boston Trial

Naked Lunch was banned in Boston, and in January 1965 the novel was tried in rem. William Cowin represented the state of Massachusetts, while Edward de Grazia represented Grove Press. Cowin argued the book's vulgarity overwhelmed any literary value it had, and that nearly every page contained something obscene. His prosecution emphasized the novel's lack of structure, arguing that the most explicit passages could be judged in isolation without considering the book as a whole.

De Grazia called authors and professors to testify about the novel's social value and literary merit. Norman Mailer praised Burroughs' literary talent and defended the novel's structure by comparing it to Finnegans Wake. John Ciardi compared the book to a hellfire sermon akin to the works of Dante Alighieri and Hieronymous Bosch and argued its vulgarity was a key part of its effect. He also argued that Burroughs' uncontrolled writing process did not undermine the novel's artistry. Professor Norman Holland agreed with Ciardi's interpretation and suggested Augustine might have written a work like Naked Lunch if he were still alive. Professor Thomas Jackson also compared the novel's explicit passages to Dante Alighieri's scenes of cannibalism and scatology, and the novel's structure to Ezra Pound's Cantos and T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land. Paul Hollander argued the novel showcased the depravity of addiction, and John Sturrock suggested it helped readers understand drug-induced psychosis. Allen Ginsberg discussed the book as a metaphor for addiction in general, analyzed connections between the novel's depictions of sexuality and drugs, and read his poem "On Burroughs' Work" from the stand.

In his cross-examinations, William Cowin suggested the novel was anti-Catholic, quizzed the witnesses on whether they could remember its characters, and challenged them to interpret provocative passages like the talking anus scene. He did not call any witnesses to testify against the book.

On March 23, 1965, the court ruled that the novel was in fact obscene. Grove appealed this decision to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. On July 7, 1966, based on new obscenity guidelines from the United States Supreme Court in Memoirs v. Massachusetts, the state supreme court overturned the ban, arguing that the testimony had demonstrated the novel's social and literary value. In a dissent, Justice Paul Reardon insisted the book was "literary sewage".

Grove Press leveraged the trial as a marketing strategy. Grove compared Naked Lunch to Ulysses, Lady Chatterley's Lover, and Tropic of Cancer, which had also been challenged for obscenity, and included transcripts of the court testimonies in a new edition of the book.

Los Angeles Trial
On January 28, 1965, the city of Los Angeles tried two people for selling copies of Naked Lunch, arguing they had violated California's obscenity statute. Municipal Judge Alan Campbell described the novel as "repugnant" and argued that the chapter describing A.J's Party may have qualified as obscene, but found that the book as a whole did not appeal to a "prurient interest" and therefore did not violate the statute. Instead, the judge wrote that "its predominant interest is to complete boredom".

Plot summary
In New York City, William Lee hides from a narcotics agent. He and fellow heroin user Bill Gains agree that law enforcement has become too aggressive and decide to leave New York. Lee travels to Mexico City, then to the surreal city of Interzone.

Lee finds that Interzone is centered around a black market of drugs and giant centipede meat, and its residents include monstrous creatures called Mugwumps. The city is contested by four rival political parties: Liquifactionists, who want to merge everyone into one protoplasmic entity; Senders, who want to control everyone else through telepathy; Divisionists, who subdivide into replicas of themselves; and Factualists, who oppose the other three.

A.J., a Factualist, and Hassan, a Liquefactionist, both support a mysterious organization called Islam Inc. This organization hires Lee to find and recruit the sociopathic Doctor Benway, who previously established a dystopian police state in Annexia. Lee meets Benway in Freeland, where he performs psychological experiments at a "Reconditioning Center". He agrees to work for Islam Inc. These events are interspersed with non-chronological vignettes about Lee's criminal history and drug use, A.J.'s and Hassan's sadomasochistic parties, Benway's unethical experiments, other characters' grotesque transformations, and abstract cut-up sequences with no clear narrative arc.

Back in New York, Lee shoots two police officers who try to arrest him, then calls the police department, which tells him those officers didn't exist. Lee considers himself "occluded from space-time" and believes he will no longer interact with the surreal world of Interzone.

The novel ends with an "Atrophied Preface" about the book itself, followed by a sequence of disjointed and impressionistic closing lines.

Title

Burroughs originally used the title Interzone for his manuscript. He also considered several titles involving the Sargasso Sea, including Meet Me in Sargasso and The Sargasso Trail, possibly inspired by William Hope Hodgson's Sargasso Sea Stories. Burroughs had also referred to Tangier's Café Central as "The Sargasso". Near the end of the novel, the protagonist William Lee describes himself as "occluded from space-time like an eel's ass occludes when he stops eating on the way to the Sargasso".

The final title began as a mistake. Reading aloud from the manuscript for Queer, Allen Ginsberg misread the phrase "a leer of nakedlust wrenched" as "a leer of naked lunch", and Jack Kerouac suggested Burroughs embrace this mangled wording as a title. The title originally referred to a planned three-part work made up of "Junk", "Queer" and "Yage", corresponding to his first three manuscripts, before it came to describe the book later published as Naked Lunch. Ginsberg would later interpret and expand on the title in his poem On Burroughs' Work, published in the collection Reality Sandwiches:

"A Naked Lunch is natural to us,   we eat reality sandwiches. But allegories are so much lettuce.    Don't hide the madness."

Burroughs himself wrote that "The title means exactly what the words say: naked lunch, a frozen moment when everyone sees what is on the end of every fork."

The book was originally published with the title The Naked Lunch in Paris in July 1959 by Olympia Press. Because of US obscenity laws, a complete American edition (by Grove Press) did not follow until 1962. It was titled Naked Lunch and was substantially different from the Olympia Press edition because it was based on an earlier 1958 manuscript in Allen Ginsberg's possession. The definite article "the" in the title was never intended by the author, but added by the editors of the Olympia Press 1959 edition. Nonetheless The Naked Lunch remained the title used for the 1968 and 1974 Corgi Books editions, and the novel is often known by the alternative name, especially in the UK where these editions circulated. However scholarly research has also suggested Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (The Luncheon on the Grass) of 1863 as Burroughs' inspiration for the title.

Style
The majority of Naked Lunch does not follow any clear structure, chronology, or geography. Instead, it abruptly jumps between a series of loosely-connected episodes (called "routines" by Burroughs), which can be read in any order. Although the novel is book-ended with a realistic crime story, most of these routines are abstract and surreal, blurring any distinction between fantasy and reality. These routines are sporadically interrupted by parenthetical asides, which comment on or clarify the text. For example, when describing a scene as taking place "...under silent wings of the Anopheles mosquito," Burroughs adds the parenthetical "(Note: This is not a figure. Anopheles mosquitoes are silent.)" Many scenes are described as though on film, using the language of stage directions and editing techniques. This structure builds on that of Burroughs' incomplete previous novel Queer, which began as a conventional narrative before fragmenting into its own series of episodic routines.

Burroughs mostly arranged the novel's chapters following the "arbitrary" order in which he received the galley proofs, but he consciously moved the "Hauser and O'Brien" chapter to the end, creating a frame narrative in which William Lee evades "the heat" of the law. Lee's escape from the agents at the end of the book is portrayed as "spiritual and linguistically radical" freedom. Ron Loewinsohn interprets the book's structure as a katabasis. The novel begins with Lee descending into an underground subway, becomes increasingly surreal until Lee reaches the chaotic Hell of Interzone, then ends with Lee emerging back into the world above.

Burroughs' writing aims to provoke disgust. The novel contains many explicit sexual scenes, emphasizing "sterile, inhuman, malevolent" acts of castration, sodomy, pederasty, and sadomasochism; in particular, the novel features recurring imagery connecting hanging with orgasm. Many "routines" involve body horror, especially grotesque transformations of humans into insects or amorphous blobs. Many of the novel's grotesque images revolve around consumption: people are described as animals like vampire bats and boa constrictors, trade giant centipede meat, and depend on the secretions of monsters called Mugwumps.

Genre
Biographer Barry Miles and Burroughs himself have called Naked Lunch a Picaresque novel. Other critics consider the book a parody with elements of spy fiction, detective fiction, science fiction, and horror fiction. , or a dystopian science fiction novel in the tradition of Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four. Marshall McLuhan considered the novel an "anti-Utopia" response to Arthur Rimbaud's Illuminations. The novel has been described as postmodern and "proto-postmodern".

The novel is partly autobiographical. The first chapter retells events previously described in Burroughs' semi-autobiographical first novel Junkie, but with a new character called "the fruit", who serves as a parody of the implied reader of Junkie; the fruit presents himself as hip and street-smart, but Lee mocks his naivety and plans to sell him catnip by claiming it's cannabis. Other routines are also based on Burroughs' real life, such as Lee's interactions with a racist County Clerk and his addiction to Eukodol. Dr. Benway's dehumanizing Rehabilitation Center parodies the real-life Lexington Medical Center, which once treated Burroughs for opioid addiction. Loewinsohn interprets Interzone and its political power struggles as "a metaphor for Burroughs himself", with the political parties reflecting Burroughs' romantic struggles, his history of self-harm, and his attempts to communicate with his readers.

Analysis and themes
The novel describes Interzone's four political parties: the Liquefactionists want to physically dissolve and absorb other people, the Senders want to control other people's minds via telepathy, and the Divisionists want to endlessly replicate themselves. These parties each represent threats to individualism, and are opposed by the fourth party, the Factualists, to which Lee belongs. The novel is especially critical of the Senders, describing them as "the Human Virus", interested in control solely for its own sake, and the root cause of "poverty, hatred, war, police-criminals, bureaucracy, [and] insanity". The novel showcases the struggle between authoritarian, bureaucratic control, epitomized by Dr. Benway, and individual freedom, represented by the Factualist Party. AJ and Lee, both Factualists, fight back against these systems of control with violence and absurd humor. However, Burroughs undermines these characters' heroism: AJ and Lee work for Islam Inc., which has unclear goals of its own, AJ may be a double agent, and Lee is himself controlled by addiction.

Ron Loewinsohn identifies the political parties as representing different methods of international control: Liquefactionists as fascism, Divisionists as colonialism, and Senders as the soft power and cultural influence of the United States. He notes that the Factualists, who infiltrate and undermine the other parties, mirror Burroughs' understanding of how apomorphine works to relive opioid addiction. He also notes that this undercover infiltration often leads to the Factualists acting similarly to their opposition, such as AJ and Hassan both staging sadomasochistic parties, but with crucial differences: Hassan's cruelty is real, while AJ's is simulated.

Interzone is also marked by a violent struggle between Nationalists and Imperialists, reflecting the political situation Burroughs observed in Tangiers. The novel does not align itself with either side. One of the book's most political routines mocks the Nationalist Party Leader, describing him as a "gangster in drag" who cares only about his own position, not the residents of Interzone. However, the Capitalists who oppose him are equally unconcerned with Interzone's residents, who they see as targets to exploit. This skepticism of both sides reflects Burroughs' own ambivalance towards Moroccan nationalism.

The novel's routines emphasize addiction, especially to heroin, which can be read as a metaphor for broader social problems and obsessions. David Ayers interprets heroin as Burroughs' "paradigm" for understanding systems of control. However, Frank McConnell argues that Naked Lunch is straightforwardly about heroin addiction in itself, and should not be read as symbolic. Lydenberg argues that Burroughs' parenthetical asides challenge the reader's instinct to "evade" the darkness of the book by treating its disturbing elements as symbols or allegories, and instead show that Burroughs insists on a literal reading. Frederick Whiting emphasizes that the novel's drug motif should be seen as a metonym for social and economic issues, not a metaphor.

The novel has been described as "an essentially nihilistic work" and "consistently hostile, contemptuous, forcefully hateful [...] without joy." Robin Lydenberg suggests that the novel advocates "a violent rejection and undermining of the entire dual system of morality."

The man who taught his asshole to talk
One of the novel's most famous routines describes "the man who taught his asshole to talk". Armed with the power of speech, the anus takes over the man's body and brain. Tony Tanner sees this routine as a paradigm for Burroughs' general theme of humans decaying into lower forms of life. Loewinsohn sees it representing zero-sum domination, contrasted against another anus-centered story shortly afterward which represents positive-sum cooperation. Manuel Luis Martínez considers it a political allegory for Burroughs' libertarian beliefs. The anus claims to want equal rights before taking over the body, and the routine is juxtaposed with Dr. Benway calling democracy a cancer, suggesting that egalitarianism can become authoritarian. Burroughs himself considered the scene a metaphor for ever-expanding bureaucracy.

Jamie Russell interprets the routine as expressing Burroughs' view of homosexuality. Burroughs believed that men were coerced into a binary of either heterosexuality or effeminacy, as the "sissy" archetype was the only role society recognized for gay men. He considered this feminine mimicry self-destructive, not empowering or subversive, and believed it created a marginalized identity akin to schizophrenia. Russell observes that the anus is originally used for a ventriloquy routine. This mirrors a description in Burroughs' first novel Junkie, in which effeminate gay men are derided as "ventriloquists’ dummies who have moved in and taken over the ventriloquist".

Barry Miles interprets the anus as Burroughs himself, reflecting his anxieties and frustrations after being romantically rejected by Allen Ginsberg. He interprets the routine as Burroughs empowering himself in the relationship dynamic.

Literary significance and reception

Along with Howl and On The Road, Naked Lunch is considered one of the defining works of the Beat generation.

Mary McCarthy was an early proponent of the novel. She wrote that Burroughs was one of only two authors who had recently interested her (along with Nabokov), defended his crudeness by placing him in the satirical tradition of Jonathan Swift, and praised his "broad and sly" humor by comparing it to vaudeville. John Ciardi, defending the book against charges of obscenity, praised it as "a masterpiece of its own genre" and "a monumentally moral descent into the hell of a narcotic addiction." Norman Mailer praised Burroughs' "exquisite poetic sense" and considered Naked Lunch a powerful religious work, describing it as "a vision of how mankind would act if man was totally divorced from eternity" and akin to the work of Hieronymus Bosch. J. G. Ballard considered the novel (along with The Soft Machine and The Ticket That Exploded) to be "the first authentic mythology of the age of Cape Canaveral, Hiroshima and Belsen" and favorably compared Burroughs' work to Finnegans Wake and The Metamorphosis. Richard Kostelanetz, while admitting the novel was "wildly uneven" and "among the most horrifying and terrible books ever written", praised its intensity and imagination, calling it by far the greatest novel of the Beat movement and "perhaps among the greatest literary works of our time".

In contrast, John Wain called it "a prolonged scream of hatred and disgust" and "the merest trash, not worth a second glance". Lionel Abel compared the work to a film that spliced together pornography with footage of Nazi concentration camps, writing "Now it is foolish, I think, to justify Naked Lunch as literature. Its descriptions of hallucinatory states under drug addiction are neither beautiful nor exquisite nor brilliant nor informative. I even wonder whether they are true." David Lodge admitted that Burroughs had "a certain literary talent", but felt that the novel's initial excitement quickly became boring, confused, and unsatisfying. He considered comparisons between Burroughs and Swift "either naive or disingenuous". John Willett wrote an anonymous review in The Times Literary Supplement simply titled Ugh..., in which he called the book disgusting and monotonous and wrote "If the publishers had deliberately set out to discredit the cause of literary freedom and innovation they could hardly have done it more effectively." This led to the longest set of responses the Literary Supplement had ever received.

Charles Poole, reviewing the book for The New York Times, criticized its "glaringly gaudy" approach of "using shocking words by the shovelful and concentrating on perverted degeneracy to a flagrant degree." A review in Commentary described Burroughs' novel as a more readable version of the work of Alain Robbe-Grillet, but felt that Burroughs' writing fell short of works by Henry Miller, George Orwell, and the Marquis de Sade, and that the novel ultimately resembled a child's tantrum.

Fans of Beat Generation literature, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker named their band Steely Dan after a "revolutionary" steam-powered dildo mentioned in the novel. Lou Reed also identified the book as a major artistic influence.

Naked Lunch is considered a key influence on the cyberpunk genre. William Gibson has cited it as one of the novels that most influenced his own writing.

The novel was included in Time's "100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005".

Film
From the 1960s, numerous film-makers considered adapting Naked Lunch for the screen. Antony Balch, who worked with Burroughs on a number of short film projects in 1960s, considered making a musical with Mick Jagger in the lead role, but the project fell through when relationships soured between Balch and Jagger. Burroughs himself adapted his book for the never-made film; after Jagger dropped out, Dennis Hopper was considered for the lead role, and at one point game-show producer Chuck Barris was considered a possible financier of the project.

In May 1991, rather than attempting a straight adaptation, Canadian director David Cronenberg took a few elements from the book and combined them with elements of Burroughs' life, creating a hybrid film about the writing of the book rather than the book itself. Peter Weller starred as William Lee, the pseudonym Burroughs used when he wrote Junkie.

Comic Books
Italian comics artist Gianluca Lerici, better known under his artistic pseudonym Professor Bad Trip, adapted the novel into a graphic novel titled Il Pasto Nudo (1992), published by Shake Edizioni.

title: Naked Lunch


text:
Feluda

Feluda is a fictional detective, private investigator created by Indian director and writer Satyajit Ray. Feluda resides at 21 Rajani Sen Road, Ballygunge, Calcutta, West Bengal, India. Feluda first made his appearance in a Bengali children's magazine called Sandesh in 1965, under the editorialship of Ray and Subhas Mukhopadhyay. His first adventure was Feludar Goendagiri. Feluda is one of the most impactful Bengali characters of all time.

Feluda is often accompanied by his cousin, who is also his assistant, Tapesh Ranjan Mitter (affectionately called Topshe by Feluda), who serves as the narrator of the stories. From the sixth story, Sonar Kella (The Golden Fortress), the duo are joined by a popular thriller writer Jatayu (Lalmohon Ganguli).

Feluda has had been filmed at times, with the character been played by Soumitra Chatterjee, Sabyasachi Chakrabarty, Ahmed Rubel, Shashi Kapoor, Abir Chatterjee, Parambrata Chatterjee, Tota Roy Chowdhury and Indraneil Sengupta. Satyajit Ray directed two Feluda movies — Sonar Kella (1974) and Joi Baba Felunath (1978). Sandip Ray made a new Feluda film series (continuation of the original series) on Feluda's adventures which started from Baksho Rahashya (1996). In this series he made ten TV films and six theatrical films in Bengali on the character. Sandip Ray also made a stand-alone Feluda film Badshahi Angti (2014) which was intended to be the first film of a reboot series featuring Abir Chatterjee, but the projects were ultimately shelved and Sandip Ray revived his original film series starring Sabyasachi Chakrabarty.

Inspiration from Sherlock Holmes

Satyajit Ray had deep interests in crime fiction and he read all of Sherlock Holmes fictions in his school days. And when Ray himself started writing on crime fictions, unsurprisingly, the character Sherlock Holmes inspired his writings. Feluda's character resembles Sherlock Holmes and Tapesh/Topshe's character resembles Dr Watson. In the stories of Feluda, he is displayed as a big admirer of Sherlock Holmes which he mentions multiple times. In Kailash Choudhury'r Pathar he praises the way Holmes used to draw large conclusions from observations. In Londone Feluda, when Feluda goes to Baker Street, he openly addresses Holmes as the "master" (Bengali: guru) of all private detectives.

Personality
Pradosh Chandra Mitter, popularly known by his nickname Feluda, first appeared in the eponymous Bengali short story Feludar Goyendagiri (Danger in Darjeeling) in 1965. The story, written by Satyajit Ray, was published in Sandesh, a children's periodical founded by Ray's grandfather, Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury and edited by Ray himself. In the Feluda series that followed, he was portrayed as a man of around 27 (born around 1938) with a tall (almost 6'0"), athletic figure. Despite being a strongly built man adept in martial arts, Feluda relies mostly upon his superb analytical ability and observation skill (jokingly referred to as the Magajastra or brain-weapon) to solve cases instead of using physical strength or weapons. He is very choosy about taking up cases and prefers cases that require cerebral effort. He possesses a .32 Colt revolver, but the weapon is used very infrequently and mostly for non-violent purposes. However, contemporary (2000s) movies based on Feluda stories feature scenes of violence uncharacteristic in the literature, where Feluda demonstrates his martial art prowess. A master of disguises, Feluda is known to be an adept sleight-of-hand, and he puts these skills to use to solve multiple cases. Feluda often calls a meeting after solving the mystery, where he cajoles the culprit into admitting their crime.

Personal life
In his personal life, Feluda is a common Bengali youth who has been brought up by his father's younger brother (Tapesh/Topshe's father) after being orphaned when he was only 9. His father, the late Joykrishna Mitra, used to teach Mathematics and Sanskrit at Dhaka Collegiate School. According to the story 'Royal Bengal Rahasya', The Anchestral Home of Feluda was in SonaDighi Village of Bikrampur Region of Dhaka (Now Munshiganj District). His Elder Uncle was Manager of a Zamindari Estate in Mymensingh and a hunter. After the Partition of 1947, His family moved from Dhaka to Calcutta, On a rented house in Tara Road. Later, they moved in 21, Rajani Sen Road. Feluda had a job in the bank before his detective career. He finds an avid listener in his cousin Tapesh. He often uses his oratory skill at the climactic scenes to cajole the culprit into confessing his crime. He is an early riser and is frequently shown starting his day with exercises and yoga.

Contrary to his otherwise healthy lifestyle, Feluda enjoys smoking cigarettes and chewing betel leaves after lunch. His favourite brand of cigarettes is Charminar. He is a connoisseur of delicious food, popular music, movies, and books. He has a great appreciation for Sherlock Holmes and, according to the film Tintorettor Jishu, Bruce Lee. Similar to Sherlock Holmes, he has a voracious reading habit (reflecting that of Ray's own), which add up to his enormous general knowledge. This know-how often comes handy while socialising with people and unravelling mysteries. He always reads up about a place before visiting. He says it comes in handy sometimes. He is shown to be fond of Tintin, and specially his cousin, Topshe, is a fan of Tintin. Some of the Feluda stories and films have many references of The Adventures of Tintin. He is also a huge fan of the books by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay, Jim Corbett and Kenneth Anderson. His favourite book was "Aranyak" written by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay. He is also shown to be fond of non-fiction books like Aku-Aku, Chariots of the Gods? and The Numerology of Dr. Matrix.

Feluda has love and respect for Lalmohan Ganguly (Jatayu) and his fictional creation Prakhar Rudra is liked by Feluda. Feluda is protective and caring about his cousin, yet he always keeps picking mistakes or humor of or from Topshe. Topshe, the narrator, greatly admires his brother and loves to be a part of his adventures. Feluda has never shown interest in any woman, and there are very few female characters in the stories or films (except some minor characters like Topshe's mother).

Topshe
Feluda's paternal cousin Tapesh Ranjan Mitter, who is fondly referred to as Topshe, is based on Arthur Conan Doyle's conception of Dr. John Watson. In the first couple of stories, his surname was Bose, but later it changed to Mitra. Just like the former army surgeon, Topshe is the quintessential accomplice and faithfully records each of Pradosh Mitter's exploits accurately. Topshe is a smart teenager. In the first story of Feluda series (i.e. Feludar Goyendagiri), Topshe was thirteen and a half where Feluda's age was twenty-seven, just the double of Topshe. Though Feluda often teases his young cousin, he is extremely fond and very protective of him. Feluda lives with Topshe's family. Topshe's father, Binay Mitter is the younger brother of Feluda's father, and therefore his uncle, and they all reside at 21, Rajani Sen Road, Kolkata-700029. Although there really is a 'Rajani Sen Road' in Kolkata, the house number is missing. Formerly, they all used to live in Tara road, Kolkata. Though not mentioned explicitly, Topshe is good-looking, fair, tall and handsome, as per different illustrations made by Satyajit Ray himself.

Detailed knowledge regarding Topshe's high school education is not available, but he used to go to school during the adventure of Sonar Kella (the sixth book of Feluda series). In the film adaptation of Sonar Kella, Topshe's mother shows her concern regarding his career and study as he spends much time solving cases with Feluda. By the time of Kailashe Kelenkari (the eighth book of the series) he have had his secondary examination ('Madhyamik Pariksha'). Just like Feluda, Topshe also used to read lot of books to enhance his knowledge. Topshe often gets his lessons from Feluda himself. In many cases, Feluda tests his deductive knowledge and he usually passes the test satisfactorily. In the movie  Sonar Kella Topshe's father aptly said that Topshe is a lucky boy who got Feluda as his mentor. Topshe is fond of 'Adventures of Tintin' comic series. In the book  Kailashe Kelenkari, he is found reading 'Tintin in Tibet'.

Topshe always takes an active part in Feluda's adventure. Though in most cases, he follows Feluda's instructions or indications, there are instances where he himself gets involved into some action/investigation. To mention a few, he and Jatayu (a.k.a. Lalmohan Ganguly) sneaks into a warehouse in 'Patan' (Nepal) to discover vast collection of smuggled narcotics (book Jato Kando Kathmandute); finds out the stabbed body of a missing man in the woods (book Darjeeling Jomjomat); replaces the pink pearl with a fake for safe-keeping (book Golapi Mukta Rahasya). The last incident impressed Feluda as well. However, all these activities mainly comes in the latter part of the series. He also interrogated the suspects in Apsara Theaterer Mamla when Feluda was sick and bed-ridden. Feluda solved the case just from the report of that interrogation.

In movies and TV films the character of Feluda has been played by Soumitra Chatterjee, Sabyasachi Chakrabarty and recently Abir Chatterjee, while Topshe has been played by Siddartha Chatterjee, Saswata Chatterjee, Parambrata Chattopadhyay and Saheb Bhattacharya over the years. In Sandip Ray's 2014 film Badshahi Angti, actor Sourav Das played the role.

In Srijit Mukkherjee's Webseries, Topshe was played by Kalpan Mitra and Feluda was played by Tota Roychowdhury. In Arindam Sil's Webseries, Feluda was played by Parambrata Chatterjee and Topshe by Rwitobroto Mukherjee.

Lalmohan Ganguli or Jatayu
Lalmohan Ganguli is a close friend of Pradosh Chandra Mitter, and is described as the author of a series of Bengali crime thrillers written under the pseudonym 'Jatayu'. His crime stories and novels are usually derided as unbelievable, considering that his main character is always the superhero Prakhar Rudra. Though all his novels seem to have become best-sellers, he often tends to make extremely silly mistakes such as spelling igloos as 'ilgoos'. In Baksho Rahasya or Incident on the Kalka Mail, he confuses hippos with walruses — a tendency that Feluda often tries to correct. He sometimes serves as a perfect foil to the group and in Ray's own words provides 'dollops of humour', although he sometimes does some brave acts not expected of him. To mention a few, he knocked out goons in Baksho Rahasya, Joto Kando Kathmandute, Tintorettor Jishu and Ebar Kando Kedarnathe, which impressed Feluda as well. He owns a 'Madrasi green' Ambassador car. Jatayu makes his first appearance in Sonar Kella joining Feluda and Topshe in the train at Kanpur, on their way to Jodhpur. In the first two films on Feluda, which were directed by Ray himself, the character was played by Santosh Dutta, and after the first one, Ray modified the literary character to some extent, making him look and behave quite like Dutta himself. In the next films directed by Ray's son, Sandip Ray, this character was played by Mohan Agashe, Rabi Ghosh, Anup Kumar and Bibhu Bhattacharya respectively. Jatayu also has a fantasy of collecting weapons. In various books he carried weapons like 'kukri' (Nepali knife), and smoke bomb. Jatayu lives at Garpar in Kolkata, and it may be recalled that Satyajit Ray himself passed his childhood at 100, Garpar.

Sidhu Jetha
Sidhu Jetha's formal name is Siddheshwar Bose. He is an aged character who has described himself to be like Sherlock Holmes's brother Mycroft, living in Sardar Sankar Road, Lake Market, Kalighat, Kolkata. He is a bibliophile, and has an extensive base of general knowledge, current and historical affairs. He is a close friend of Feluda's father, being former neighbours in their ancestral village in Bangladesh. Feluda's jyatha (that is, uncle) is said to have a 'photographic memory', and is a vast source of information which comes in handy when Feluda is in need of some. His vast knowledge comes from his collection of varied kinds of newspaper clippings which he has accumulated over the years. The role was played by Harindranath Chattopadhyay in Sonar Kella, Ajit Bandopadhyay in Baksho Rahashya, Dibya Bhattacharya in Golapi Mukto Rahashya, Haradhan Banerjee in Kailashe Kelenkari and in Gorosthaney Sabdhan and by Paran Bandyopadhyay in Double Feluda. Following recent Feluda films made by Sandip Ray, Satyajit Ray's son, there have been questions over Sidhu Jyatha's continued relevance in the stories considering technologies such as the internet offer a faster, wider and more effective knowledge base than a well-read person.

Haripada Datta
Haripada Datta is the driver of Lalmohon Ganguli's second-hand green Mark II Ambassador car. He is a loyal, intelligent and reliable person and is of great help when needed. He played a crucial role in Gorosthaney Sabhdhan where he saved the lives of Feluda, Jatayu, and Topshe. He also has a minor role in Boshpukery Khunkharapi, where he takes part in a surveillance mission with the rest of Feluda's gang in disguise playing 29 cardgame.

Maganlal Meghraj
Meghraj is a villainous character who appears in three Feluda stories, including Joi Baba Felunath, Joto Kando Kathmandute, and Golapi Mukta Rahasya. He has been compared to Professor Moriarty of the Sherlock Holmes series. Utpal Dutta immortalised this character in one Feluda movie Joi Baba Felunath, which Satyajit Ray directed. After him Mohan Agashe played this character twice in telefilms.

Maganlal lives in Benaras. He has a house in Joka, Kolkata also. His son's name is Surajlal Meghraj. He is officially a money-lender but is involved in smuggling artifacts, narcotics (through Indo-Nepal border) and jewellery. His Kolkata house had been raided once but he escaped any charges until Feluda caught him red-handed in smuggling an invaluable Ganesh Murti (an idol of the elephant god) during the case of Joi Baba Felunath. However, he was not behind bars for a long time. In the nineteenth book, Jato Kando Kathmandute, Feluda said that he was not at all surprised seeing Meghraj out of jail as that was nothing for such an influential person. Once again he was arrested in charge of murder and smuggling, yet he averted any long term punishment and we saw him once again in the thirty-first story, Golapi Mukta Rahasya.

Maganlal is a good judge of human character. He lured Bikash Singh, secretary of Umanath Ghoshal, to steal the invaluable 'Ganesh Murti' from the Ghoshal-house. He also has a special interest in humiliating Jatayu. In Joi Baba Felunath he made Jatayu the subject of a knife-throwing play. In Jato Kando Kathmandute, he purposefully slips an LSD-laced sugar cube in Jatayu's tea. In his third appearance, he made Jatayu to sing a Tagore song (which Jatayu said his first time experience of singing a song). Surprisingly, he shows a queer fondness to Jatayu and usually calls him 'Uncle'.

During these three stories, we see many accomplices of Maganlal. Some of them are Machhli-Baba, Bikash Sinha, Arjun the knife thrower, Anantalaal Bantra, Dr. Dibakar and Manohar. Maganlaal has his own Bajra by which he travels in Ganga near Benaras. The door of his house in Benaras is painted with figures of two swordsmen. During the making of the movie, 'Joi Baba Felunath', this swordsmen were painted by Satyajit Ray himself.

Pulak Ghoshal
Ghoshal is a Mumbai-based popular Hindi film director hailing from Kolkata. His original home in Kolkata is in the neighbourhood of Lalmohonbabu's in northern Kolkata's Garpar. He has directed two films based on Lalmohonbabu's stories. During the shooting of both these films, dangerous events took place, resulting in arrest of a producer in one film (Bombaiyer Bombete) and arrest of an actor in another film (Darjeeling Jamjomat).

Minor characters

 * Srinath is the domestic help of Feluda and Topshe. He is often seen serving tea and snacks for Feluda and his clients.
 * Jagannath is the household cook at Feluda's place.
 * Bharadwaj is the household cook at Lalmohan Babu's place.
 * Baikuntha Nath Mallik was a poet, tourist and Bangla teacher at Ethenium Institution where Lalmohan Babu used to study. When he was in the seventh grade, he won prize for reciting Baikuntha's poem on sea. Lalmohan Babu often describes him as a great poet who did not get the adulation he deserved. There is no presence of him in the story but in some stories we can see Jatayu reciting his poems.

Films
Satyajit Ray directed Sonar Kella (1974) and Joi Baba Felunath (1979) into movies in Bengali, starring actor Soumitra Chatterjee as Feluda, Santosh Dutta as Jatayu and Siddartha Chatterjee as Topshe. This two films created a cult following in Bengali cinema later years.

Sandip Ray directed five Feluda theatrical feature-length films, starring actor Sabyasachi Chakrabarty as Feluda, Parambrata Chatterjee as Topshe in the first three films (Later he was replaced by Saheb Bhattacharyya) and Bibhu Bhattacharya as Jatayu. But the first theatrically released Feluda film directed by Sandip Ray was Baksho Rahashya (1996) which was the first film of the Feluda TV film series and was made for television release only. It was released in theaters in December 2001. In this TV film Sabyasachi Chakrabarty was Feluda, Saswata Chatterjee was Topshe and Rabi Ghosh was Jatayu.

 * Bombaiyer Bombete was released in December 2003.
 * Kailashey Kelenkari was released in December 2007.
 * Tintorettor Jishu was released in December 2008.
 * Gorosthaney Sabdhan was released in December 2010.
 * Royal Bengal Rahashya, released in December 2011

Then Sandip Ray directed Badshahi Angti which was released in November 2014, in which Abir Chatterjee is playing Feluda for first time. This was going to be a reboot to previous the Feluda film series after ''Royal Bengal Rahashya. '' However, in 2016 Sandip Ray cancelled the reboot series because Abir Chatterjee started a new version of film series based on the Byomkesh Bakshi franchise under Shree Venkatesh Films and Surinder Films. The other reason was the new Feluda movie Sandip Ray intended to make under a Mumbai-based production house Eros International, but Abir has a strict contract with Shree Venkatesh Films and Surinder Films. For the cancellation of the reboot series Badshahi Angti is now considered as a stand-alone reboot film.

On 23 December 2022, Hatyapuri was released under the banner of Shadow Films. This was the reboot to the previous Feluda film series. The film was directed by Sandip Ray and starred Indraneil Sengupta as Feluda alongside Ayush Das and Abhijit Guha as Topshe and Jatayu respectively. Within a year and a half, Nayan Rahasya was released on May 2024, produced by Surinder Films. Indraneil Sengupta, Ayush Das and Abhijit Guha reprise the role of Feluda, Topshe and Jatayu respectively.
 * As a tribute to the 50-year anniversary of Feluda,a special film Double Feluda was released in December 2016. It was a continuation of the original Feluda movie series where Sabyasachi Chakrabarty and Saheb Bhattacharya reprised their roles as Feluda and Topshe respectively. The movie consisted of two stories, Samaddar-er-Chabi and Golokdham Rahashya, shown on either half of the movie.

Television

 * Kissa Kathmandu Mein (in Hindi, based on Joto Kando Kathmandute for DD National) (1986).Feluda was played by Shashi Kapoor, Jatayu by Mohan Agashe, Topshe by Alankar Joshi and Magan Lal Meghraj once again by Utpal Dutt.
 * Ghurghutiyar Ghatona (1992) and Golokdham Rahasya (1992) were directed by Bibhash Chakraborty.Feluda was played by Soumitra Chatterjee in these two Bengali Feluda telefilms.

In addition to the feature films, 10 Feluda stories have been filmed by Sandip Ray.Sabyasachi Chakrabarty played that role in these Feluda telefilms.Jatayu was played by Rabi Ghosh in the first two TV films, after his death Anup Kumar played Jatayu and finally by Bibhu Bhattacharya.In all these Feluda TV films Topshe was played by Saswata Chatterjee.These television films under the names/packages:

(The Episodes were - Baksho Rahashya, Gosaipur Sargaram, Sheyal Devta Rahashya, Bosepukure Khunkharapi, Joto Kando Kathmandu) (The Episodes were - Jahangirer Swarnamudra, Ghurghutiyar Ghotona, Golapi Mukto Rahashya, Ambar Sen Antardhan Rahashya) (The Episode was - Dr Munshir Diary) From 1999 to 2001 Bangladesh Television (BTV) aired nine Feluda TV films. The series gained a huge popularity in Bangladesh.
 * Feluda 30 (1996–1998) (for DD Bangla, Later Repeated in Tara Muzik)
 * Satyajiter Goppo (1999) (made for DD Bangla)
 * Satyajiter Priyo Golpo (2000) (for ETV Bangla)

Sandip Ray has sold the rights of Feluda stories to Bangladeshi production company Kandy Productions, who are producing a TV series inspired by the original Feluda series. It premiered on Channel i as well as digitally on Bioscopelive from September, 2017. The series is available in India on the digital platform Addatimes Digital. Dhaka based Kandy Production is producing the series jointly with Top of Mind Creations, another Bangladeshi TV and film production house. This series depicted Feluda as a modern time detective. It has three episodes titled as 'Sheyal Devta Rahashya','Ghurghutiyar Ghotona' and 'Golokdham Rahashya.Parambrata Chatterjee plays Feluda and Riddhi Sen plays Topshe. The first season of the series is directed by Parambrata Chatterjee.'.

The first Bangladeshi adaptation of Feluda was released in 2019.Feluda is played by versatile actor, Ahmed Rubel, it also stars legendary actor, Abul Hayat. It is directed by actor-director Tauquir Ahmed.It was titled 'Noyon Rohossho-Feluda''.It's still available on Bioscopelive

Web series
In 2020 a web series is making, named 'Feluda Pherot' based on the iconic Bengali detective and there will be two popular stories, ‘Chhinnamastar Abhishap’ and 'Joto Kando Kathmandute'. Bengali actors Tota Roy Chowdhury is playing the main character 'Feluda' and Kalpan Mitra as 'Topesh' seemed to be his young assistant and the iconic character Lalmohan Ganguly, alias 'Jatayu' is playing by Anirban Chakraborty who played the main character in Detective Series Eken Babu before. It will be available to stream on the web platform addatimes. The song which has been sung by Rupankar Bagchi, Rupam Islam and Anupam Roy was out on 2 May 2020 on Srijit Mukherji's Facebook account and Anupam Roy's YouTube channel. The trailer of the Feluda Pherot Season 1 Chhinnamastar Abhishap is released on 21 November 2020 and the trailer of the Feluda Pherot Season 2 Joto Kando Kathmandute  is released on 22 November 2020.The Season 1 released on 26 December 2020.
 * Feludar Goyendagiri which was initially titled Feluda Pherot (Directed by Srijit Mukherji)

In 2022,streaming platform 'Hoichoi' owned the right of continuing this series and rebranded as Feludar Goyendagiri.Tota Roy Chowdhury,Kalpan Mitra,Anirban Chakrabarty all reprised their roles.And the first season of this newly branded continuation was titled 'Darjeeling Jomjomat'.

In This series Parambrata Chatterjee portrayed himself as Feluda and Rwitobroto Mukherjee as Topshe. The first season was titled Gangtokey Gondogol. It is currently streaming on ZEE5.
 * Shabash Feluda(Directed by Arindam Sil)

Animation
In 2010 an animated TV film produced by DQE Productions titled Feluda: The Kathmandu Caper was produced and the rights were acquired by Disney Channel (India). The movie premiered on 1 January 2011. DQE Productions also made a 13-episode animation series named Mysteries and Feluda after the animated TV film for Disney XD. The series including the TV film was set into a new universe, where Feluda, Topshe and Jatayu have many gadgets.

Radio

 * The first radio adaptation of Feluda was made by Satyajit Ray in the early 80s, Baksho Rahsaya with his usual cast like Soumitra Chatterjee as Feluda, Santosh Dutta as Jatayu, Siddartha Chatterjee as Topshe and Sushil Majumdar as Sidhu Jyatha along with other prominent actors like Haradhan Bandopadhyay, Biplab Chatterjee and Bikash Roy.
 * Akashabani had produced Darjeeling Jomjomat casting a set of regular actors in radio.
 * In January 2007, the BBC World Service announced that it would produce at least two 'episodes' of the popular detective stories. Hindi film star Rahul Bose speaks the leading role, with Anupam Kher voicing Lalmohan. The first episode, "The Golden Fortress", aired on 10 February 2007 with the second episode, "The Mystery of the Elephant God", following on 11 August 2007.
 * In 2007 Sandip Ray rebooted the radio series with his own set of actors as Sabyasachi Chakrabarty as Feluda, Parambrata Chatterjee as Topshe and Bibhu Bhattacharya as Jatayu. He made two new dramas based on, Gosainpur Sargaram and Dr. Munshir Diary. They with Baksho Rahashya, directed by Satyajit Ray, aired together on Big FM.
 * Radio Mirchi Kolkata station airs thrillers in a radio drama format, under the programme name 'Sunday Suspense' which includes some Feluda stories. Feluda is voiced by Sabyasachi Chakrabarty. Dip and Somak voices Topshe and Mir Afsar Ali voices the other characters. Bibhu Bhattacharya voiced Jatayu in only one episode. After Bhattacharya's death Jagannath Basu voices Jatayu.
 * Radio Today airs thrillers in a radio format, under the programme name Thursday Nightsaga, which includes some Feluda stories. However, it stopped before finishing the Feluda novel Baksho Rahasya.

Comics
Some of the Feluda stories have been made into comic strips by artists and authors. Abhijit Chattopadhyay creates a comic strip based on Feluda stories in every Pujabarshiki Anondomela. The comics are published by Ananda Publishers. English versions of comics have appeared in The Telegraph.

Penguin Books has released comic book versions of around 6 Feluda mysteries. The art is drawn by Tapas Guha and the script is by Subhadra Sen Gupta.

Music
In a collaborative album brought out in 1996 by HMV, Kabir Suman sings a 'Feludar Gaan' (Feluda's song). The song written by Kabir Suman was first publicised at Sandesh magazine on the special Feluda 30 issue released in December 1995 on the completion of 30 years of Feluda stories. Later in a collaborative album by HMV Choto Boro Miley (1996) the song was composed and performed by three-legend singer-songwriter Kabir Suman, Nachiketa Chakraborty and Anjan Dutt.

Later many of Bengali songs have references and symbols of Feluda franchise including "Calcium" by Anjan Dutt from the album Purono Guitar (1995).

Documentary
A Bengali documentary film Feluda: 50 Years of Ray's Detective in 2019 was directed by Sagnik Chatterjee. This is the first biopic of India based on a fictional character. This film was released on 7 June 2019.

In Pujabarshiki
Nearly every Feluda story was published annually in the Pujabarshiki Desh (the edition of Desh commemorating the Durgapuja published every year). Thereafter the stories were published as hard-back editions by Ananda Publishers. Some of the stories were published originally in Sandesh, a children's magazine co-edited by Satyajit Ray. In 2015 Feluda celebrates his 50 th years after appearance. This is printed as 'Feluda 50' in anandamela.

title: Feluda