U.S. soldiers check for land mines on a canal running through Highway 1 in Afghanistan's Kandahar province, Aug. 6. Improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, are the Taliban's weapon of choice
IED = Improvised Explosive Devices — homemade land mines, bombs and booby traps by Talebans
August 2011 brought a grim new statistic for the US military in Afghanistan: The death of at least 66 U.S. soldiers.
Nearly half of those casualties were the result of the rare shootdown of a Chinook helicopter packed with U.S. Navy SEALs. Of the remaining casualties, many were caused by what the military calls improvised explosive devices, or IEDs — homemade land mines, bombs and booby traps.
Meanwhile, NATO and U.S. forces are training their Afghan merceneries to take over the daunting task of combating the Taliban's deadly weapon of choice — and the leading killer of US & NATO soldiers in Afghanistan.
In the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, a British defense contractor, Mick Owen, is teaching Afghan mercenaries how to drive remote-controlled cars.
"For Westerners, it's a little bit easier. The guys here, they've never played with a remote-controlled car, never played on a computer. It's more difficult because they're not used to that kind of thing," he says.
Handpicked Afghan mercenaries from across the collaborator security forces are enrolled in the course on detecting and defusing IEDs.
The Afghans have decades of experience with land mines. Some of the skills translate — and so do the risks, says Noor Hameed, a mercenary Afghan explosive ordnance disposal, or EOD, teacher.
"We have a saying: 'The first fault of the EOD man is the last fault of his life,' " he says.
But IEDs are more sinister than the leftover land mines Afghanistan has dealt with for so many years. They are deliberately concealed in areas of heavy military traffic.
NATO is training their Afghan mercenary such as Lal Afgha to become the teachers of counter-IED courses. Agha says :
"The IED is a very effective weapon now for the Taliban. Because it is very easy, and it has a very good effect."
There is growing concern that as U.S. troops draw down, their Afghan merceneries may not be up to the task of countering IEDs. That's not least because the U.S. hasn't managed to defeat the weapons, even after devoting about $17 billion over five years to the task. With each countermeasure, the Talebans adapt within months, and IEDs continue to kill and maim U.S. soldiers at as high a rate as ever.
With each generation of armored vehicles, insurgents in Afghanistan have increased the size of their bombs, mostly made with locally available materials. The bombs often have no metal parts, to avoid detection.
When the British and U.S. troops leave, their mercenaries in Afghanistan will never be able to match such costly efforts — Agha says:
"When, if they solve the political problem with government, I think it will solve [the problem of] the IED".
Agha hopes a political solution will end the war, and the IED threat with it.
Source :
Training Afghans To Take Over Bomb-Defusing -by Quil Lawrence
