Threat of Roadside Bombs Grows in Afghanistan

(March 15) -- Even as roadside bomb attacks are decreasing in Iraq, U.S. and NATO forces are facing more of the crude bombs in Afghanistan as a resurgent Taliban has made them its weapon of choice, says a senior military official.

The number of the bombs, or improvised explosive devices, which are often planted alongside roads to target military convoys, has dropped steadily in Iraq over the past several years as the country has become more stable. But that's not the case in Afghanistan.

A US Marine runs to safety moments after an IED blast in Garmsir district of Helmand Province in Afghanistan on July 13, 2009.

Manpreet Romana, AFP / Getty Images

Roadside bomb attacks are growing in frequency and becoming more deadly in Afghanistan even as they're decreasing in Iraq. Here, a Marine runs to safety after an IED explosion that killed two Americans in 2009.

"In Afghanistan, the threat is expanding," says U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Michael L. Oates, the director of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization."It's almost doubled in volume in IEDs in the last year; the number of casualties has reflected that."

The organization has spent billions of dollars on technology to battle the roadside bomb, but the opposing trends for Iraq and Afghanistan made it difficult to assess the effectiveness of the military's efforts.

IED attacks in Iraq reached a high in 2009 and have come down steadily. In Afghanistan, on the other hand, the number of attacks rose dramatically: from 278 in the month of September 2007 to 860 in the same month of 2009, according to statistics provided by the organization.

The types of IEDs being used in Afghanistan are very different from those used in Iraq, making it even more difficult for U.S. and NATO forces to defeat them.

Unlike IEDs in Iraq, which often used military-grade explosives and sophisticated detonation methods like cell phones, roadside bombs in Afghanistan are homemade devices that often use fertilizer to power the explosives and simple pressure plates or trip wires as triggers.

Less sophisticated doesn't necessarily mean less deadly, however. In Afghanistan, U.S. forces have to contend with a much larger geographic area, and even more problematic, a large number of unpaved roads that are easier for hiding bombs.

One significant difference between Iraq and Afghanistan is what Oates calls the "command and control" structure of the networks. In Iraq, the IEDs were financed in some cases by al-Qaida or by Sunni and Shia political factions, but those who actually set off the bombs were often unemployed men doing it for the money.

Afghanistan, however, is run more like a traditional military operation with regular fighters planting the roadside bombs on order of their commanders. "In Afghanistan, the Taliban is very much in control locally," he said.

Trying to understand the dynamics of who plants the IEDs is essential to preventing the attacks, but Oates says there is still a "long way to go" when it comes to fully tracking the networks that plan and execute IED attacks. The U.S.'s challenge in both countries "is still driven by significant cultural ignorance."