As in Iraq where it became the most effective weapon of insurgents, the improvised explosive device has raised the casualty count significantly for U.S. forces in Afghanistan over the past two years.
A surge in ground forces and a change of strategy to have more U.S. troops dismount from vehi
cles to mix with the Afghan populace has produced a more target-rich environment for homemade bombs.
In 2008, IEDs killed 68 American service members in Afghanistan. The number rose to 168 in 2009 and to 268 last year, according to the Defense Manpower Data Center. The number of wounded from IEDs nearly tripled to 3,371 in Afghanistan last year, up from 1,211 in 2009 and 270 in 2008.
The Joint IED Defeat Organization, with its $2.8 billion annual budget, is responsible for countering the threat. Mitchell Howell, deputy director for rapid acquisition and technology, said the organization has made steady progress even though no “silver bullet solution” has been found.
He said the enemy adjusts tactics and techniques swiftly in response to whatever fresh countermeasures the U.S. military adopts.
“Those guys don’t have a long, drawn-out materiel acquisition system,” Howell said. When coalition forces devise a solution to one technology, “within weeks if not days, or sometimes hours, the bad guys change the manner in which they deploy. They are always watching what we do, and they change a bit more frequently than what our traditional acquisition system is designed to accommodate.”
Nevertheless, Howell said, the organization’s combination of operations — training the force, uncovering and attacking IED networks, and developing tactics and technologies to defeat devices — has saved lives and steadily is making deployment of explosives a riskier business for enemies.
“You can judge that by the methods insurgents tend to shift to,” Howell said. “We are seeing a shift back toward suicide-borne IED folks because we have limited their ability to explode IEDs on the roads in some of the villages.”
Suicide attacks are targeted thus more effective, Howell said. “But we are working very hard to be able to discern the personnel and vehicle borne IEDs at a distance, well before they get into critical areas.”
In an agrarian economy like Afghanistan, fertilizer and other bomb-making chemicals are plentiful. Because almost every IED uses electrical blasting caps to detonate, one “silver bullet solution” would be the ability to “pre-detonate everything,” Howell said. But most IEDs are buried, making pre-detonation difficult.
“If you’re going to pre-detonate a buried item, you need to create enough of a residual charge between the two lead wires to cause that device to explode. To do that through a medium other than air is very difficult,” Howell said. “You would need an incredible power source.”
So far no tactical concept has been found to bring that sought of capability to a battlefield terrain like Afghanistan.
“It’s a daunting task,” said Howell. “That’s not to say we aren’t pursuing that. We are, and in great detail. But (given) limitations of physics and other scientific means, it doesn’t seem that’s a viable solution set.”
What about overhead technology to detect disturbed ground?
“There are many techniques and technologies we are currently applying that attempt to do just that,” Howell said. “I won’t get into the classified arena but there are things called ‘change detection’ on roads.”
Training, too, is a critical mission, ensuring that deploying forces learn what assets are available to fight IEDs and how to use them.
“The kids have confidence in the equipment that we have provided for them. They are prosecuting this fight on the IED and this insurgency with complete resolution,” Howell said. “We will get this job done.”
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