Precision

The explosion that killed Sgt Taylor, Cpl McCormack, Pte Chidley, and Michelle Lang was a tragic blow to the their friends and families, to their co-workers, and to the Canadian public who relied upon them in one way or another. But amid all the commentary surrounding their deaths, one worrisome point seems to have been missed.

I see no reason to get into the details of the IED that killed them - BruceR at Flit has already said what I was thinking about that - but suffice to say that it seems to have been command detonated, and there were no reported Afghan civilian casualties.

For those readers who don't know what I mean, a short explanation: some IED's are triggered by a live body pushing a button (eg. a suicide bomber), and some are more indiscriminate (eg. a pressure plate trigger). Those triggered deliberately are "command detonated."

I don't have access to any hard stats, but from my standpoint as an observer, for awhile there, insurgent bomb-makers and bomb-layers seemed to be moving away from command detonated IEDs. They discovered that having someone close by the bomb could be detrimental to that individual's health once our forces discovered them trying to blow our soldiers up. Remote electronic means were subject to electronic countermeasures, and a wire could be followed to its source. So the Taliban moved to pressure plates and other indiscriminate triggers.

The problem for them with that tactic is that an indiscriminate trigger doesn't care if it's an Afghan kid or an ISAF soldier tripping it. In a battle for hearts and minds, that sort of error is extremely counterproductive. And don't think for a moment that both sides don't know that:

Taliban suicide bombings and other attacks caused Afghan civilian deaths to soar last year to the highest annual level in the war, the U.N. said Wednesday, while deaths attributed to allied forces dropped nearly 30 percent — a key U.S. goal for winning over the Afghan people.

Insurgent attacks were mainly aimed at government or international military forces but often were carried out in crowded areas, the U.N. said in a report.

Afghans seen as supporting the government or the international community also were targeted, including community elders, former military personnel, doctors, teachers and construction workers as well as employees of the U.N. and non-governmental organizations.

"Through these actions, the armed opposition has demonstrated a significant disregard for the suffering inflicted on civilians," the report said.

The U.N. mission, which is in Afghanistan to support and bolster the Afghan government, said 2,412 civilians were killed in 2009 — a 14 percent increase over the 2,118 who died in 2008. Another 3,566 civilians were wounded.

Nearly 70 percent of the killings, or 1,630, were blamed on suicide attacks and other insurgent bombings as well as assassinations and executions. Some 25 percent, or 596, were attributed to pro-government forces, the report said. The remaining 135 deaths could not be attributed to either side but were civilians caught in the crossfire or killed by unexploded ordnance.

The number of civilians killed by pro-government forces, including U.S. airstrikes, decreased by 28 percent over the previous year, the report found. Airstrikes still killed 359 civilians, or 60 percent of the deaths attributed to pro-government forces and 15 percent of civilian deaths overall. [my italics]

One command detonated IED doesn't make a trend. But I wonder if the insurgents are adjusting their tactics in response to the the growing awareness among ordinary Afghans that the threats to their security can be pinned squarely upon the Taliban:

But a survey released this week found that 42 percent of the 1,534 Afghan respondents now blame the violence on the Taliban — up from 27 percent a year ago. Seventeen percent blame the U.S., NATO or the Afghan security forces, down from 36 percent a year ago.

Worth noting and watching, at the least.