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View Full Version : IED use growing rapidly in Afghanistan, New way's to defeat them



bobdina
09-22-2009, 03:37 PM
By Michelle Tan

In two weeks, nine soldiers from a single infantry battalion were killed in horrific explosions in southern Afghanistan.

The three catastrophic attacks that hit 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment illustrate the rapidly growing use of improvised explosive devices there despite a troop buildup to help quell an increasingly violent and complex insurgency.

The troops are seeing almost 4 ½

times as many IED incidents as they did two years ago, according to the Joint IED Defeat Organization, which leads the Defense Department’s counter-IED efforts. “The level was very low two or three years ago,” said Loren Thompson, chief operating officer of the Lexington Institute, a Washington-area think tank. “The enemy has learned a lesson from Iraq, so now they’re very heavily engaged in laying IEDs.” But despite the seemingly alarming trend, troops on the ground and defense analysts alike agree that the bombs are more primitive than those used against fellow troops during the height of the war in Iraq.

“Overall, we did not see the sophistication of IED attacks as we saw in Iraq,” said Maj. Dan Morgan, who was the operations officer for 4th Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division during its recent 12-month tour in eastern Afghanistan.

“But we did see enemy tactics, techniques and procedures improve and adapt to circumstances on the ground,” Morgan said. “This indicates that the enemy is adaptable and a thinking enemy.” Most important, however, is the enemy was not effective in its attacks against soldiers in the brigade, Morgan said.

“As you analyze enemy activity from the previous year, April 2007 to March 2008, against our deployment from March 2008 to March 2009, you see an overall 15 percent increase in IED attacks in our area of operations,” he said. “However, the enemy’s very effective attacks against us were reduced by 8 percent.” When 4th BCT, 101st Airborne came home in March it was replaced by 4th BCT, 25th Infantry Division.

“The number of bombs is up. You can look across the board and they’re up … but the numbers in our area are not up exponentially,” said Maj. Matt Gregory, a spokesman for the 25th Infantry Division brigade. “[And] the effectiveness of the IED has stayed relatively the same.” The IEDs found in Afghanistan tend to be more crudely made, and the enemy also doesn’t seem to have as much access to munitions as enemy fighters in Iraq, Thompson said.

“In Iraq, for a few years the enemy had access to almost all the artillery and munitions of Saddam’s army,” he said. “It’s not really like that in Afghanistan. The enemy doesn’t really have as many munitions.” He added that any munitions leftover from the Soviet invasion, which ended in 1989, are “quite rudimentary compared to what you might find in Saddam’s arsenal after he was deposed.” In addition, many of the mines used by the Soviets were made of metal, while most of the mines used these days are made from plastics, making them more difficult to detect, Thompson said.

In the area of operations for 4th BCT, 25th ID, which includes Paktia, Paktika and Khost provinces in eastern Afghanistan, there were 35 IEDs in February 2008 compared with 32 in February 2009. And there were 75 in June 2008 and 121 in June 2009.

The situation on the ground in Afghanistan also is different from that in Iraq, Thompson said.

“Per square mile there are fewer friendly troops in Afghanistan and more potential enemy combatants than we faced in Iraq,” he said. “We had a pretty clear idea [in Iraq] of where we were going to run into the enemy, and especially after the surge, we had more people to deal with them.” The number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan has more than doubled from two years ago, from 24,000 in August 2007 to 62,200 in August 2009.

Between January and June of this year, IEDs caused approximately 77 percent of casualties among International Security Assistance Force troops in Afghanistan, according to JIEDDO. In 2008, IEDs caused about 69 percent of ISAF casualties.

Officials from JIEDDO warned that IED attacks are not confined to Iraq and Afghanistan, and IEDs likely will be the weapon of choice for terrorists for the next 20 to 30 years.

Tactics, techniques and procedures from Iraq and Afghanistan are migrating to other theaters, and IED incidents outside those two theaters, including in places such as Indonesia, Spain, England, India and Pakistan, have increased steadily since 2006, said Irene Smith, a spokeswoman for JIEDDO.

“The annual rate of increase in IED attacks outside of Iraq and Afghanistan [has been] 28 percent,” she said.

However, JIEDDO and troops on the ground are making strides in detecting and destroying IEDs before they have a chance to explode.

New technologies

JIEDDO is taking a “layered approach” to new technologies designed to increase survivability and detection capability, spokes*woman Smith said.

These technologies include increased armored protection for vehicles such as the Stryker and Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle; a ground penetrating radar-based detection system meant to enhance route clearance patrols; and a modular mine roller system designed specifically to defeat pressure-plate IEDs known as the Self-Protection Adaptive Roller Kit System.

For soldiers in 4th BCT, 101st Airborne, the introduction of MRAPs, which they received after they arrived in theater, and effective route surveillance boosted their battle against IEDs, Morgan said. The threat was particularly high in Khost Province, where there was a marked increase in IED attacks, Morgan said.

“The IED attacks in Khost increased because the Khost government remained strong and threatened the enemy objective in the area,” Morgan said.

The brigade didn’t lose one soldier to an IED if the soldiers were attacked while in an MRAP, he said.

Gregory also praised the effectiveness of the MRAP.

“These vehicles work, they save lives,” he said. “They’re doing what they’re designed to do.” However, the IEDs, especially those that are triggered by pres*sure plates, are having a big impact on local civilians, Gregory said.

“We ride around in up-armored Humvees and MRAPs, we know what to look for, we know where things tend to happen,” he said. “But civilians, these guys put down pressure plate IEDs … and instead of these IEDs going off against coalition vehicles you have these IEDs going off against civilian vehicles. Those IEDs devastate those civilian vehicles.” In addition to tactical measures, the military also can employ strategic measures to reverse the rising number of IED attacks, Thompson said.

“Make the locals less likely to help the Taliban lay the weapons,” he said, as an example. “You can buy them off. You can keep them isolated from Taliban operatives. If you have a strategy that actively discourages the locals from helping the Taliban, that’s as effective as technological responses.” The way troops are used in the fight also can make a difference, Thompson said.

“We have been putting them in small groups in remote areas, making them more isolated,” he said. “Every soldier is a potential target, so you have to think carefully about how you deploy your force.” Now that Iraq is regaining its security and stability, and commanders are working to draw down the force there, the war in Afghanistan is going to receive a lot more resources than it did, Thompson said.