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U.S. Going After Pakistani IED Components
The single largest intelligence gap in the fight against roadside bombs, which are responsible for 90% of allied casualties in Afghanistan, is uncovering how ammonium nitrate fuel makes its way from two legitimate manufacturing facilities in Pakistan across the western border into Afghanistan, says U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Michael Barbero, director of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Office (Jieddo) at the Pentagon.
Eighty percent of the IEDs in Afghanistan are made using this ammonium nitrate, he says, and the designs are spreading worldwide, making them a near-term threat not only to deployed forces but a strategic problem for civilian centers in the United States and elsewhere. This is the significant weapon of these conflicts. It is the greatest casualty producer, Barbero says. The IED is the artillery of the 21st century.
Six months ago, the general says the U.S. government-wide effort to learn more about this transit process was at a dead stop. Since then, however, an interagency effort including help from the intelligence community has begun to tackle the issue, and Barbero says the U.S. may be ready to take action on what it has learned about the ammonium nitrate network soon. This could include military action as well as economic pressure put forth by other parts of the government.
You cant solve the IED fight in Afghanistan in Afghanistan, Barbero told an audience at a Nov. 10 breakfast hosted by the Institute of Land Warfare in Arlington, Va. What we dont understand is how this ammonium nitrate gets from the factories and to these insurgents who can process this where it is more detonable than TNT in about 40 min. If you are just worrying about the devices, you are just playing defense, he says.
The amount of money the U.S. has spent to quickly develop and field technologies to detect and destroy IEDs totaling billions of dollars is far disproportionate to the cost of deploying the explosives, which employ the ammonium nitrate contained in plastic palm oil jugs, often a wooden pressure plate and a metal blasting cap.
In fiscal 2011, $2.44 billion was allocated for Jieddo and a similar amount is expected in the fiscal 2012 budget. Thus, Barbero says that stemming the flow of ammonium nitrate into Afghanistan is necessary to shift that dynamic and put a higher cost on the terrorist network to conduct IED operations. They are too smart and they have got it figured out. We have got to close that gap and make it affordable, Barbero says, or they are going to price us out of this.
Among the technologies helping to detect the homemade explosives facilities are new sensors including hyperspectral detectors fielded on aircraft and satellites. They are able to find targets based on their chemical composition thus making processing and transfer operations harder to camouflage as is done with optical sensors.
Barbero says the IED problem is not limited to Afghanistan and Iraq, and is an enduring threat globally. Thus, the office is planning to release a strategy in January that looks at what long-term capabilities will be needed and what research and development gaps must be addressed.
U.S. Going After Pakistani IED Components | AVIATION WEEK
The single largest intelligence gap in the fight against roadside bombs, which are responsible for 90% of allied casualties in Afghanistan, is uncovering how ammonium nitrate fuel makes its way from two legitimate manufacturing facilities in Pakistan across the western border into Afghanistan, says U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Michael Barbero, director of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Office (Jieddo) at the Pentagon.
Eighty percent of the IEDs in Afghanistan are made using this ammonium nitrate, he says, and the designs are spreading worldwide, making them a near-term threat not only to deployed forces but a strategic problem for civilian centers in the United States and elsewhere. This is the significant weapon of these conflicts. It is the greatest casualty producer, Barbero says. The IED is the artillery of the 21st century.
Six months ago, the general says the U.S. government-wide effort to learn more about this transit process was at a dead stop. Since then, however, an interagency effort including help from the intelligence community has begun to tackle the issue, and Barbero says the U.S. may be ready to take action on what it has learned about the ammonium nitrate network soon. This could include military action as well as economic pressure put forth by other parts of the government.
You cant solve the IED fight in Afghanistan in Afghanistan, Barbero told an audience at a Nov. 10 breakfast hosted by the Institute of Land Warfare in Arlington, Va. What we dont understand is how this ammonium nitrate gets from the factories and to these insurgents who can process this where it is more detonable than TNT in about 40 min. If you are just worrying about the devices, you are just playing defense, he says.
The amount of money the U.S. has spent to quickly develop and field technologies to detect and destroy IEDs totaling billions of dollars is far disproportionate to the cost of deploying the explosives, which employ the ammonium nitrate contained in plastic palm oil jugs, often a wooden pressure plate and a metal blasting cap.
In fiscal 2011, $2.44 billion was allocated for Jieddo and a similar amount is expected in the fiscal 2012 budget. Thus, Barbero says that stemming the flow of ammonium nitrate into Afghanistan is necessary to shift that dynamic and put a higher cost on the terrorist network to conduct IED operations. They are too smart and they have got it figured out. We have got to close that gap and make it affordable, Barbero says, or they are going to price us out of this.
Among the technologies helping to detect the homemade explosives facilities are new sensors including hyperspectral detectors fielded on aircraft and satellites. They are able to find targets based on their chemical composition thus making processing and transfer operations harder to camouflage as is done with optical sensors.
Barbero says the IED problem is not limited to Afghanistan and Iraq, and is an enduring threat globally. Thus, the office is planning to release a strategy in January that looks at what long-term capabilities will be needed and what research and development gaps must be addressed.
U.S. Going After Pakistani IED Components | AVIATION WEEK
