Technicals in the Middle East and North Africa appeared quickly during the 1960's and 1980's, ramping up their appearances around the same time as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and later due to Taliban and Islamic State's wide adoption of the vehicles but they had been present in smaller numbers as far back as the 1920's. After the Taliban began to make extensive use of such vehicles they were catapulted forwards in the West's knowledge, becoming a common sight in Afghanistan and Iraq, but they were primarily not heavily armoured vehicles, only armed.

 

It was the rise of the Islamic State that would promote increasing heavier levels of armour and weaponry on technicals and other improvised vehicles, including suicide bomb cars (VBIED and SVBIED, Suicide Vehicle Bourne Improvised Explosive Devices).