Taking out Taliban IED networks

A direct way to confront the IED threat, with a lot of forensics (long article, here's a March post based on a similar story in the Toronto Star that highlights intelligence):

Targeting Taliban bombs
Strategy Change; Military task force looks to stop leading killer of soldiers

Globalsecurity.Org,Icasualties.OrgKagan McLeod & Jonathon Rivait, National Post

They are the scourge of Afghanistan, the primitive but powerful bombs that Taliban insurgents plant along roadways to kill Canadian soldiers passing in armoured convoys.

And they are deadly.

Three-quarters of the 34 Canadian troops killed in Afghanistan in the past 12 months have died due to improvised explosive devices, and a government report this week said such attacks have increased since last year.

To counter the Taliban's weapon of choice, the military is spending tens of millions on technological fixes -- robots that flail the ground for buried bombs and vehicles that detect explosives up to 100-metres away and destroy them with a laser.

But in an interview this week, the commander of Canada's fight against IEDs said the most effective strategy was to go directly after the Taliban bomb networks -- from the foot soldiers who dig the device into the road up to the parts suppliers and financiers. "Technology is certainly great, but it's not the silver bullet," Colonel Omer Lavoie said. "And we believe that there is a silver bullet -- it's in the training and it's in the evolution of tactics."

Col. Lavoie heads the Counter-IED Task Force, a group set up in 2007 to co-ordinate the military's response to the bombings that remain the number one killer of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan.

["The counter-IED task force, in association with the Canadian Explosives Technicians Association, is hosting the annual Explosives Disposal Conference (EDCON 2009) in Niagara Falls, Ont., June 2–4."]

A 26-year veteran of the armed forces with a master's degree, he understands all too well the importance of his assignment. His regimental sergeant major and close friend, Chief Warrant Officer Robert Girouard, was killed in an IED attack in 2006.

The colonel is an infantry officer, not a bomb engineer, but he said that was why he was chosen to head the task force. The military wanted to change its strategy. Instead of just dealing with bombs, it wanted to dismantle the bomb networks...

The strategy is built on the premise that every bomb that ends up buried in a road is the work of a network of planners, money men, suppliers, transporters and builders. And Col. Lavoie was charged with targeting them all.

To do so, he had to start thinking like a detective. He adopted the techniques of a police investigator and began treating the Taliban more like a criminal organization than an insurgent force. Mobile forensics labs were airlifted to Afghanistan aboard C-130 transport planes to analyze each IED for clues because often bombs have signatures -- methods or components that help identify the culprits.

Working with the RCMP, the military also began using the same geographic profiling software that police use to track serial killers. Plotting the attacks of each network has helped troops zero in on their bases [here's one such operation from January this year, which our media almost completely ignored]. "We're borrowing a lot of stuff from the law enforcement community," Col. Lavoie said...

Waging Canada's fight against IEDs are about 40 troops attached to a special squadron in Afghanistan. Another 60 personnel based in Canada are working on the program, about half of them in Ottawa.

The Combat Training Centre in Gagetown, N. B. is also involved, as are the RCMP, CSIS and Communications Security Establishment [CSE's website seems to have vanished - MC; Update June 7, site is up], Canada's ultra-secret electronic eavesdropping agency. Defence Research and Development Canada has also been working on projects, including one that aims to increase the chances of surviving an IED attack.

Meanwhile, the military is spending $80-million on programs such as Project 1112, which uses surveillance towers [see below] and aerial balloons that keep a constant watch on roads. Work is continuing on Project 1199, a trio of vehicles that can detect and clear roadside bombs [a Canadian Sapper has his own, robot, project].

In its quarterly update on the Afghanistan mission this week, the government said Afghan forces had made "noteworthy advances" in the fight against IEDs and were "mounting a growing number of effective, independent operations on their own."

But Steven Staples [aaarrgh! see this post], President of the Rideau Institute on International Affairs, an Ottawa think-tank [look who's involved], said disrupting IED networks is not a long-term solution.

"The way this conflict is going to end is not by hunting down people that are making bombs in mud huts somewhere," he said. "It's ultimately going to end sitting around a table in some sort of negotiated process, possibly with people that we don't like very much."

Col. Lavoie said there are signs the new strategy is working. Since 2006, use of IEDs jumped 350% in Afghanistan [see below], but during that same period the number of casualties stayed the same or dropped, he said. Part of that is likely due to the increased reliance of helicopters to move troops without exposing them to risky roads [more here and here], but Col. Lavoie said the statistics suggest the Taliban bomb networks are under stress...

I would imagine Canadian special forces in Afstan are quite engaged in taking out IED networks. With regard to detecting IED activity:

Thales’ DISCUS Sensor and Surveillance System Selected by Canadian Army

(Ottawa, May 28, 2009) - Thales has been awarded a $12.5 million Persistence Surveillance Towers System contract by the Government of Canada. The Thales Deployable Integrated Sensors for Compound Security (DISCUS) system, will provide the Canadian Army with the ability to protect personnel against improvised explosive devices through the use of persistent wide area observation, detection, identification and monitoring.

“The DISCUS system gives the Canadian Forces a battle-proven Force Protection system that has been operationally deployed by NATO forces in Afghanistan since 2006“ said Guy Baruchel, President of Thales Canada. “This system includes cartography, radar management and camera cueing and control capabilities that will enable the early detection of intruders and provide critical information on the potential threat.”

Thales’ DISCUS incorporates a ground-based battlefield surveillance radar that provides the first level of situational awareness. The ground radar detects any movement around a compound or area of observation and displays the information on the command and control screen. This information consists of the exact position and automatic identification. The target is assessed in real time by an electro-optical sensor mounted on a tower cued automatically to the target.

The video images are displayed on a graphical user interface. Smart algorithms can be applied to this interface such as Local Adaptive Contrast Enhancement, image stabilization, dynamic super resolution for low contrast conditions and operational aiding tools. All sensors and the graphical user interface are connected to Thales’s SmartNet network; a versatile solution for the different interface standards in the system. The system can support multiple sensors and has a modular infrastructure that allows for other types of sensors such as motion detectors, hostile fire indicators and aerostats.

“In addition to enhanced local protection capabilities, the information provided by the DISCUS system could also be fed into the Land Force Command and Control Information System (LFC2IS) to further enhance the Commander’s situational awareness,” added Dave Spagnolo, General Manager, Land and Joint Systems division, Thales Canada. “This contract combined with the recent awarding of the Land Command Support System (LCSS) Software Long-Term Software Support (LTSS) contract to Thales Canada, has positioned us a one of Canada’s premier Battlefield Information Technology and Management Systems providers.”..

As for increasing IED use, from a post at Bouhammer's Afghan Blog:

Anyone that has read this blog for a while knows that for the last three years I have been spouting off about how each year for the last three years is going to be the worse yet. I said it in 2007 and it came true, I said it in 2008 and it came true, and I said it in 2009 and so far we are right on track.

I have usually made these statements in the first 2 months of the year based on the number of fatalities during those first two “quiet” months as just one factor. CJCS Mullen and GEN Petraeus have also stated that they believe this will be the worst year yet also.

Yesterday it was announced that IED attacks are up 80% over last year and we just entered the month of June. The real heavy duty fighting has not even started yet...