The use of roadside bombs in Afghanistan against foreign troops and civilians has reached record highs, with US forces struggling to cut off the flow of Pakistani fertilizer used to build them.
Taliban insurgents battling US and NATO-led forces for nearly a decade are now using a growing number of improvised explosive devices (IED) to strike personnel or vehicles along Afghanistan’s dusty roads.
The Pentagon’s Joint IED Defeat Organization (JIEDDO), a specialized body tasked with putting a stop to the use of the often remote-controlled roadside bombs, offered a bleak assessment of the situation now facing foreign forces.
“During the last 12 months, an unending supply of calcium ammonium nitrate, originating almost exclusively from Pakistan, has been used to produce IEDs in -Afghanistan despite a countrywide ban” on importing the fertilizer, JIEDDO spokeswoman Irene Smith said.
From April to June, 3,485 IEDs exploded or were found in the war-ravaged country, according to JIEDDO — a 14 percent increase over the same period last year. In June, use of roadside bombs was 25 percent higher than average.
Ground troops, who are trying to reach out to the population as part of the strategy to defeat the Taliban, are particularly vulnerable to IED attacks. Use of roadside bombs against them surged 59 percent in the spring.
However, coalition forces are not standing idly by. About 1,900 weapons caches were discovered in the spring, three times more than last year, according to JIEDDO figures.
NATO-led troops have also seized about 100 tonnes of homemade explosives and “removed over 300 high-value individuals” since the start of November last year, Major General James Terry, commander of ISAF forces in the south, told reporters.
Last year, IEDs — the weapon of choice for lightly armed insurgents battling advanced militaries — were responsible for 60 percent of coalition deaths, even if only one in 10 bombs leads to casualties.
The IEDs have not only been used against heavily armed foreign troops, but also against the local population, accounting for one-third of all civilian deaths in Afghanistan in the first six months of this year.
“Civilian deaths from IEDs increased 17 percent from the same period in 2010, making IEDs the single largest killer of civilians in the first half of 2011,” the UN said in a mid-year report on the conflict.
“Most of the pressure-plate IEDs used in Afghanistan contain approximately 20 kilos of explosive, more than twice that of a standard anti-tank mine — yet have the trigger weight of an anti-personnel mine,” the UN said.
JIEDDO says an overwhelming 84 percent of IEDs used in Afghanistan are made from calcium ammonium nitrate, developed by fertilizer manufacturers as an alternative to pure ammonium nitrate that could not be detonated.
Smith explained that the substance is “reprocessed by insurgents and then used as a homemade explosive main charge.”
Better cooperation with Pakistan is seen as essential to ending the flow of fertilizer into Afghanistan.
“Unless we neutralize this network, through a whole-of--government approach, we will never defeat the IED threat confronting our troops in Afghanistan,” Smith said.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of