IED nightmare the world over
JATINDER SINGH
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U.S. has spent billions in trying to develop technical countermeasures but to little avail
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IT IS nearly a year since I wrote an article on the same topic bringing out the use of IED (improvised explosive devices) by the insurgents in Iraq and how even in our context the IED threat is booming and we need to be prepared. The Americans have spent billions of dollars in trying to develop technical countermeasures for IEDs but to little avail and they think that they may be against the limits of the possible.
During the past year the Pentagon has created a group, the Joint IED Defeat Organisation (JIEDDO) of nearly 350 personnel commanded by a retired four star Army general. The task force has already spent more than $ 2 billion to develop new technologies and tactics to defeat IEDs.
At first these roadside bombs were detonated by cell phones. U.S. troops responded with jammers. Hunting for unjammable triggers the insurgents started using pressure switches and infrared devices. The Americans increased their electronic attack aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles and satellites, searching the landscape for hidden bombs.
IEDs have caused the vast majority of U.S. casualties in Iraq. Most U.S. vehicles either carry or are due to be fitted with jammers of their own. Notwithstanding the billions invested in trying to develop technological countermeasures, there has been a massive increase in placement of the bombs, yet only a minor rise in the number of IEDs detected and cleared before they are detonated. The insurgents have a much faster cycle of change and adaptation.
Iraq and Afghanistan are overflowing with explosives, giving insurgents ready access to bomb making material. The magazine Defense News has mentioned that as per British military intelligence, Iraq has enough stocks of explosives for the insurgents to continue the same level of attack for 274 years without resupply.
The deadliest IEDs continue to be large clusters of artillery shells or high explosive buried in roadways, and placed directly beneath a passing vehicle. They penetrate or collapse the thinner armour on the underbelly of even the most heavily armoured vehicles.
Insurgents have used 250 and 500 pound (114 and 228 kg) aircraft bombs buried in the elevated canal roads that crisscross Iraq's rural areas to destroy even heavy tanks. They are now realising that they cannot emplace huge bombs in Baghdad, and have turned to sophisticated shaped charges, called explosively formed penetrators (EFPs). The U.S. has no effective way of jamming the triggering devices on EFPs. Armour piercing EFPs are small devices, not larger than a coffee can and their passive infrared triggers are immune to military jamming.
The American defence hierarchy is looking for technological solutions to an operational problem. A gaining perception is that the Pentagon is simply ill-suited to counter adaptive threats, and that military leaders should offer the task to society at large, with hefty incentives, for workable ideas.
In India, even the naxalites are gradually acquiring the expertise for manufacturing and using IEDs. The recent haul of mines in Kolkata and Andhra Pradesh is an indicator of availability of raw material. We need to be prepared since the IED threat is looming and booming.
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