Explosive belt An explosive belt ( also called suicide belt , Bomberpilot Jacket , suicide vest ) is an improvised explosive device , a belt or a vest packed with explosives and armed with a detonator , worn by suicide bomber s . Explosive belts are usually packed with ball bearings , nail s , screw s , bolts , and other objects that serve as shrapnel to maximize the number of casualties in the explosion . History . The use of the explosive belt or vest originated with , and was perfected by the Tamil separatists of Sri Lanka called the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam ( LTTE ) . The use of suicidal attacks to inflict damage upon an enemy predates the Second World War , in which Kamikaze units ( suicidal air attacks ) and Kaiten ( " living torpedoes " ) were used to attack Allied forces . " Explosive belts " ( or vests ) are an on - foot version of such attacks . Description . The explosive belt usually consists of several cylinders filled with explosive ( de facto pipe bomb s ) , or in more sophisticated versions with plates of explosive . The explosive is surrounded by a fragmentation jacket that produces the shrapnel responsible for most of the bomb ' s lethality , effectively making the jacket a crude , body - worn , claymore mine . Once the vest is detonated , the explosion resembles an omnidirectional shotgun blast . The most dangerous and the most widely used shrapnel are steel balls in diameter . Other shrapnel material can be anything of suitable size and hardness , most often nails , screws , nuts , and thick wire . Shrapnel is responsible for about 90 % of all casualties caused by this kind of device . A " loaded " vest may weigh between and may be hidden under thick clothes , usually jackets or snow coats . There are several explosives in common use in the Middle East . C - 4 ( a type of plastic explosive ) is one of the more potent , but also the rarest because it is the most difficult to obtain . Increased crackdowns by the Palestinian Authority led to the arrest of most skilled explosive makers and made smuggling more difficult , leading to less common use of trinitrotoluene ( TNT ) . Its replacement has been the much less stable and more dangerous , but easy to make , acetone peroxide ( TATP ) , known as " Mother of Satan " for its instability . This shift led to many casualties among explosive makers as well as nearby civilians , as the clandestine laboratories that produce explosive belts are often located in residential areas , and it is not uncommon to find dozens or even hundreds of kilograms of TATP in a single location during a raid . In some constructions , TATP is used only for the initiator , and the explosive itself is a homemade mixture similar to Ammonal . A suicide vest may cover the entire stomach and usually has shoulder straps . A common security drill against suspected suicide bombers is to isolate the suspect to at least away from other people , and ask him to remove his upper clothing ( coat , shirt , etc . ) in order to see if there is an explosive vest strapped under them . This drill is problematic when dealing with female suicide bomber s . Alternatively , an infrared detector can be used . The discovery of remains as well as incidentally unexploded belts or vests can offer forensic clues to the investigation after the attack . Forensic investigation . Suicide bombers who wear the vests are often obliterated by the explosion ; the best evidence of their identity is the head , which often survives because it is separated and thrown clear of the body by the explosion . The journalist Joby Warrick conjectured : " The vest ' s tight constraints and the positioning of the explosive pouches would channel the energy of the blast outward , toward whoever stood directly in front of him . Some of that energy wave would inevitably roll upward , ripping the bomber ' s body apart at its weakest point , between the neck bones and lower jaw . It accounts for the curious phenomenon in which suicide bombers ' heads are severed clean at the moment of detonation and are later found in a state of perfect preservation several yards away from the torso ' s shredded remains " .