Drones fight IEDS in Afghanistan
Spy planes’ sensors detect bomb triggers while radar keeps watch
WASHINGTON — Images from spy planes and sensors that detect wires that trigger explosives have helped to mitigate the No. 1 threat to U.S. troops in Afghanistan — roadside bombs — over the past year.
The Pentagon has filled the skies over Afghanistan with high-tech sensors, and the effect has been measurable. From March through May, troops in vehicles found 64% of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) before they blew up, an 11percentage-point increase over the previous quarter. Troops on foot patrol found 81%, a 4percentage-point increase, according to the Pentagon’s Joint IED Defeat Organization (JIEDDO).
The rate of discovery before bombs exploded hovered around 50% for years. The most important measure of progress: IEDs caused fewer than half of troop deaths for the first time in five years.
“We are, in terms of detection of all types of IEDs, vastly better than we were a year ago,” Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter told USA TODAY in an interview. He credited airborne surveillance with driving progress against IEDs.
Detectors on aircraft, first used in Iraq, have successfully assisted troops in locating wires attached to bombs, which allows them to be defused. Radar is trained on the Afghan-Pakistani border, giving commanders a view of bombmakers’ escape and supply routes.
“Where we still have a problem . . . is in the use of Pakistani territory: safe haven, safe supply,” Carter said, “but we’ve gotten better at interdicting those sources of supply with, for example, airborne radars to watch people as they come over the desert or over the mountains. Those have been introduced during the last year.” He did not specify the aircraft or detection systems used.
Success hasn’t been cheap. JIEDDO has spent more than $18 billion to counter the threat.