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IEDs
Report: Troop Deaths by IEDs in Afghanistan Up 60 Percent
By Lisa Flam - AOL NewsThe number of American troops in Afghanistan killed by improvised explosive devices rose 60 percent last year to 268, about the same number who perished in the three previous years combined, according to military statistics obtained by The Washington Post. The figures also show that the number of those wounded by the roadside bombs in 2010 nearly tripled, to 3,366. The bombs are the biggest cause of casualties for U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The head of a Pentagon agency charged with combating the IEDs, Army Lt. Gen. Michael Oates, noted a recent decline in the percentage of bomb attacks ...
Nothing Sniffs Out Roadside Bombs Like a Dog's Nose
By Sharon Weinberger - AOL NewsIn the war on roadside bombs, the Pentagon has spent billions on everything from radio-signal jammers to robots, but there's one tool that's beaten them all -- dogs. Now, instead of trying to come up with a technology that's better than dogs, Navy scientists are focusing on how to make the bomb-sniffing dogs work better. Christophe Simon, AFP / Getty Images Bomb-sniffing dog Corporal Ace searches for explosives near a U.S. Marine from 1st Battalion, 6th Regiment, Charlie Company during a patrol around Huskers camp in the outskirts of Marjah in Afghanistan's Helmand ...
Marines to Send Bomb-Spotting Radar to Afghanistan
By Sharon Weinberger - AOL News(Nov. 16) -- A new handheld, ground-penetrating radar device will be used to combat the roadside bombs that are the top killer of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, a Marine general said today. In Afghanistan, the homemade bombs typically use pressure plates with low levels of metal, making them particularly hard to find, Lt .Gen. George Flynn, commanding general of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command, told reporters at a round table this morning. "[The ground-penetrating radar] can actually find an anomaly on the ground," he said. When roadside bombs proliferated in Iraq following the ...
Roadside Bombs Less Lethal for Today's Troops
By Katie Drummond - AOL News(Oct. 20) -- Roadside bomb attacks are still deadly and all-too-common in Afghanistan, but the Pentagon says fewer troops than ever are succumbing to injuries that would have been life-threatening only a few years ago. That's mostly because of better war-zone medical care and quicker transport offered by medevac helicopters, according to a new report issued by Defense Department officials. In September, attacks from 180 improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, killed 24 American troops, compared with 46 troops killed by 131 IEDs during September 2009. In 2008, Defense Secretary Robert Gates ...
Companies Work to Save Bomb-Clearing Robots
By Sharon Weinberger - AOL News(Sept. 1) -- When improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, became the weapon of choice in the early days of the Iraq war, the Pentagon rushed electronic jammers to the field to save soldiers' lives by disrupting the wireless signals that often triggered the deadly roadside bombs. The military also began sending robots designed to help soldiers in the dangerous job of dismantling the bombs. The jammers, and the robots, are credited with saving countless soldiers' lives. Now, in an unusual turn of events, companies are trying to save the robots' lives, too. At a recent robot conference in ...
Guantánamo Detainee's Torture Claim Dominates Hearing
By Graydon Gordian - Politics DailyGUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba -- The pretrial hearing for the youngest accused war criminal in modern history began Wednesday with a judge ruling that the military tribunal could consider as evidence Omar Khadr's statements that he was tortured during interrogations. Col. Patrick Parrish, presiding at the hearing, rejected the motion by prosecuting attorneys Jeffery Groharing and Air Force Capt. Chris Eason to suppress an affidavit that included accusations of torture by Khadr, a 23-year-old Canadian citizen captured in Afghanistan and charged with murder, conspiracy and support of terrorism. ...
Pentagon Shifts Focus in Hunt for Deadly Afghan Bombs
By David Wood - Politics DailySoon after U.S. troops invaded Iraq in 2003, Islamist extremists hit upon what a senior official calls a "winning'' strategy: targeting U.S. troops with cheap but deadly makeshift bombs hidden in roadways, trash heaps and abandoned cars. The United States has mounted a costly and ambitious effort to detect these Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), spending billions of dollars on sophisticated detectors and sensors, like ground-penetrating radar and high-tech jammers. The Pentagon has spent $32 billion on heavy armored trucks alone, even though insurgents have found ways to blow some of them ...
Roadside Bomb Hunting: Learned Skill or Intuition?
By David Wood - Politics DailyIt was dusk and just over 100 degrees as the truck convoy designated Dagger Three Seven snaked past concrete barriers and coils of razor wire and crept onto a road pocked with scars where previous convoys had been hit with IEDs. Our gun truck was escorting two dozen tractor trailers carrying food, ammo, and spare parts from an air base to an outlying post, and to make sure we got there OK, Army Specialist Francisco B. Fimbres was up in the turret, sweeping the landscape with eagle eyes. Left ... front ... right ... front ... left. ...
Pentagon Mounts New Effort to Stop IEDs
By Sharon Weinberger - AOL News(Nov. 13) - Given the number of years and the billions of dollars that the Pentagon has sunk into finding ways to counter the crude bombs, improvised explosive devices still make up a devastating portion of U.S. troop casualties -- some 80 percent. But Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has a new plan to combat the problem. On Thursday, he announced plans to create a new task force to look at the continuing problem of homemade bombs, which remain the top killer of troops in Afghanistan. The roadside bombs would be "one of my top priorities for, say, the next six months," Gates told reporters ...
Why Can't U.S. Military Stop IED Attacks?
By Sharon Weinberger - AOL NewsThe death of a British explosives expert in Afghanistan has again highlighted how the crudest of bombs has proved an effective way to combat the world's most technologically advanced militaries. British Staff Sgt. Olaf Sean George Schmid was killed in southern Afghanistan on Saturday while defusing a bomb, a tragic end for a soldier who had dedicated his career to clearing explosives. News of Schmid's death comes just days after Washington lawmakers again grilled the head of the Pentagon agency responsible for combating IEDs on why more progress hasn't been made in this area. Manpreet ...
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