Roadside Bombs & IEDs (catch all)

[Armchairguy]

It seems most IED solutions are after the fact detection and/or increasing armor. When I hear about a road called "IED alley", it seems to me that we should be putting as many hidden surveillance resources as possible all over this road. This way we can see the bad guy place his IED follow him and take out his whole network. I realize it would be expensive and not something you could do everywhere all the time, but I have to believe there aren't going to be that many people capable of making IEDs and that we could move on to the next "IED alley" eventually. Let's take the fight to the enemy rather than be pushed by his moves.

[Jedburgh]

AKO Log-In Required

Subject: Defeating IEDs - THE critical Soldier life and death issue of this war!

Defeating improvised explosive devices (IED) is THE critical Soldier life and death issue of this war and is responsible for the vast majority of our casualties.

DA and DOD formed some time ago a coalition consisting of many partners all working toward the same goal of defeating this major threat to our forces. The Battle Command Knowledge System (BCKS) is one of the primary coalition partners and provides the NIPR level (unclassified FOUO or below) online knowledge sharing and collaboration component of the coalition through its IED Defeat Community of Practice.

The mission of the BCKS IED Defeat Community of Practice is to provide an online NIPR level community of practice for the collaborative transfer of experiential knowledge on defeating improvised explosive devices (IEDs) from those who have it, to those who need it.

How can participating in BCKS IED Defeat Community of Practice (CoP) benefit Soldiers, DA Civilians and leaders?

1. Reduce the time needed to resolve specific IED defeat related technical or leadership problems and challenges.
2. Considerably shorten the learning curve for a job, function or profession working on IED defeat by providing access to relevant online subject matter experts and mentors.
3. By sharing NIPR level IED defeat experiences and knowledge collectively innovative/breakthrough ideas and tools will result to the benefit of all in that job, function or profession.
4. Transfer IED defeat best practices from one Soldier or leader to another in near real-time.
5. Decrease IED defeat negative outcomes for first time real world contact experiences.
6. Avoid costly, life threatening IED defeat situations on the battlefield due to lack of knowledge and experience.
7. Reduce the cost of IED defeat mission accomplishment through superior knowledge transfer.
8. Fill the IED defeat knowledge gap between doctrine and TTPs learned at TRADOC schools and the practical application in a fast changing combat environment.
9. Efficiently support our war fighters by generating IED defeat knowledge "on the fly" as needed by harnessing the collective minds of a particular profession. Precious time is not wasted collecting extraneous information.

To become a member of BCKS IED Defeat Community of Practice go to this link: https://forums.bcks.army.mil/secure/...aspx?id=131710

Once at this site click the "Become a Member". Until you do that you will not have access to the many content items (over 200!) and the many discussions. Membership approval is both automatic and immediate.

Link to our downloadable Introduction to BCKS IED Defeat Community of Practice" PowerPoint briefing and overview.

Sample content item TC 2-22.601 Radio-Controlled IED Electronic Warfare Handbook - Aug 07 (Final Draft)(FOUO).

Links to other coalition partners can also be found at the BCKS IED Defeat Community of Practice.

Share - Collaborate - Survive - Defend

[mmx1]

Free registration required...

Timeline

Intro 'The single most effective weapon against our deployed forces'

Part 1 'The IED problem is getting out of control. We've got to stop the bleeding.'

Part 2 'There was a two-year learning curve... and a lot of people died in those two years'

Part 3 'You can't armor your way out of this problem'

Part 4 (coming) Left of Boom

via Naval Open Source Intelligence

Snagged this off another forum.

[SteveMetz]

How to stop IEDs

Gian P. Gentile

Friday, November 9, 2007

Want to stop Improvised Explosive Devices, or IEDs, from going off in Iraq and killing American soldiers and Marines? Then end the war.

This is not a political or policy statement on my part but a simple matter of fact based on my personal experience as a tactical battalion commander in west Baghdad in 2006 and on history. How did the warring sides in World War I stop the deadly artillery barrages that became endemic to that war? When the states involved agreed politically to end the war and the deadly artillery stopped...

[Jedburgh]

....For a combat soldier to be on a WWI battlefield, meant to be hit and killed by artillery. To be in Iraq, sadly, means American combat soldiers and Marines will be hit and killed by IEDs....

Wow, talk about lack of context and false analogies manipulated for effect. And this guy teaches history at the academy. Sad.

[Rob Thornton]

Even the best counter-insurgency tactics applied by competent military units have limits to what they can accomplish in a civil war. That's when I concluded that IEDs in Iraq were a condition of the battlefield that I could not completely stop.

I think he raises an important question here - when we treat everything as a problem with a solution we sometimes miss the bigger issues. I also think IEDs (of all flavors) will continue to figure prominently when we consider METT-TC from here on out. The types of insurgencies and civil wars we may find ourselves involved in will mean greater involvement of combatants equipped and fighting not as uniformed combatants, but as combatants seeking the advantages of fighting in a culture and environment where they can blend in and neutralize our strengths. IEDs generally play to their strengths and even if not employed directly against U.S. forces, still have effects against providing security and helping a host government work toward stability. Information technology and the media have made both the technical skills required to design, build and employ IEDs available to those who would use them, and the media has shown how their use effects us and the domestic will to achieve a political purpose. IT and media are also conditions in this regard.

This does not mean we should not work where possible to stay out in front in terms of mitigating the conditions in which we will operate given the political purpose. Technology can mitigate it some, TTP & Doctrine can mitigate it some, winning at the tactical and operational levels can mitigate it some. Consider that IEDs were not first encountered in Iraq - VBIEDs of various flavors have been employed for awhile - The Oklahoma City bombing, Khobar Towers were VBIEDs, the attack on the USS Cole was a type of Suicide IED and the 9/11 attacks on the Pentagon and the WTC were also a type of IED. Also woth noting that many a Vietnam veteran mad the early analogy to booby traps. While we have done our best and had some successes at mitigating and denying opportunities to employ IEDs of such large scale - we have not eliminated them - they are not a problem with a final solution because they fall under means and ways of achieving a purpose.

It does seem our ability to mitigate the IED as a condition corresponds to the environment in which takes place. The more unstable the environment - like a war zone, the less control we have over the conditions, and the less success we have in mitigating them. Because IEDs are employed where people live and because the fighting takes place in and amongst the population, our purpose for being there puts us at odds with avoiding IEDs. In the same ways insurgents are able to blend in with the population, so IEDs blend in with the environment around the population.

We've generated some success in distinguishing what belongs and what does not in Iraq - but when IED craters on the road start to look normal it creates problems in distinguishing what truly is a threat - and that is just one example. So - I agree - IEDs are here to stay - where ever the population will become the prize, and wherever the enemy can not stand up to us in a conventional sense we will see IEDs employed against us and our allies. TT and Frank Hoffman have done some good thinking on hybrid wars or what Terry referred to as complex Irregular Warfare where the enemy capabilities are blended and designed to be complimentary leaving us few choices but to be full spectrum - a hard thing to pull off, which may work counter to our achieving a given political purpose in a time period that makes the object in view worth the blood and treasure in the first place.

Our enemies have the luxury of only having to consider how to defeat us - and they are well versed in our strategic culture of how we address problems, and what lines we will not cross, and what happens to our political support when we do. This makes fielding a force capable of serving a political purpose a hard thing to accomplish, it may make it more expensive then we are willing to pay because either we choose not to acknowledge what a full spectrum force really is and what recruiting, retaining, training, educating and equipping really requires, or because we choose to not acknowledge that the enemy has the luxury of time, the advantage of home court, and the benefit of facing an enemy (us) who cannot agree on what are vital interests, and what is the cost benefit of securing them. No easy answers here, often just the best of some hard choices.

Eventually, it became clear that the only sure way to eliminate the IED threat in Iraq would be to end the civil war. The chances of that happening seemed remote, however, because the many warring sides had plenty of fight left in them.

Civil wars are the most uncivil of human activities; they take time to work themselves out through fighting and killing.

I also think he makes a valid point here. A question I heard once and stuck with me is why some wars take longer to resolve. Consider our own Civil War - Lee fought to the very end - there were several times where looking backwards through time, it appears obvious to us that he should have surrendered - but not to him, and often not to the men he led, the Confederate political leadership, or the people who lived there. Even when Sherman was demonstrating he was operating in the Confederate interior - away from the Union Navy, many in the South refused to believe he was imposing his will where he wanted. The political object in view to the South was so attractive (or the alternative so unbearable), and some of the events that had occurred in the first years of the war so convincing that the idea of defeat had to be demonstrated to the hilt, in order to show the outcome was inevitable.

There were no forgone conclusions for Grant and Lincoln either, hope yes, but right up to the end Grant thought Lee might make a run South, link up with Johnston and fight on - even when Lee's Army appeared broken and starving. The reason I bring up the Union point of view is to offer the possibility that even when one side appears to have sealed the conclusion, their mindset may be one of still doing everything possible to ensure it. Its one thing to discuss opponents who had religion and common experiences that might inhibit them from imposing a peace that would be unbearable, but maybe its another where the conditions that lead up to the war stem from distinct differences in religion & politics that have been heightened by favoritism or deprivation, violence, hatred, fears and sorrows that have have taken a life of their own.

These are also the conditions we will likely face in the future where we operate - we are not likely to find ourselves violently engaged in places where peace exists unless it is because a state belligerent has invaded or threatened a neighbor - these are not where insurgencies and civil wars occur. It seems more likely that we will either find ourselves involved in multi-ethnic/religious/tribal disputes that are destabilized from within, by a non-state actor, or by a state actor who has managed to dominate its own population while supporting/exerting a destabilizing influence on its neighbor. We may at times find ourselves facing more then one component of this description to include making a choice to employ violence against a subversive neighbor.

I appreciate the article - we need those who make major policy decisions to think about the environment that war takes place in. Its complex and enduring, and there are consequences. If we decide to employ military power to achieve our political ends, then we need to think about what we want to accomplish and what the enemy wants to accomplish, strengths and weaknesses (ours and theirs), and we need to recognize that the more populations are involved the messier it will be, and the greater the role chance and probability will play in the out come when our goals depend on the people who live in a given state or region sustaining a peace - since our strategic culture reflects our own values of free will and choice.

[Gian P Gentile]

...we need those who make major policy decisions to think about the environment that war takes place in. Its complex and enduring, and there are consequences.

Thanks Rob for the most thoughtful reply. The words you write above summarize the implicit point of the article perfectly which was the fundamental reason i wrote it. The piece started out at around 1200 words where i gave examples of World War 1 leaders devising very effective tactical innovations like German small group tactics and even the use of poison gas by the British and Germans but the editor for space constraints cut most of that out.

I remember sharing my views of IEDs as a condition of the baghdad battlefield with other battalion and brigade commanders when i was there and they agreed that it was that way.

As far as Jedburg's statement that i made a "false analogy;" ok, if that is how he sees it fine. However, when i was reeling from the effects of lethal ieds on my outfit and was trying to figure out how to deal with them in baghdad in 2006 accepting that they were a condition, by drawing on my sense of history and my understanding of World War I trench warfare, that i could never make them go away i think helped me to come up with realistic plans of action to deal with them.

Again Rob, thanks for taking the time to pen this response and thanks too to Steve Metz for posting this piece as a thread.

gian

[Jedburgh]

Rob, your exegesis of what he wrote was far more cogent and thoughtful than the original article. Your final point that we need those who make major policy decisions to think about the environment that war takes place in is well taken. Strategic IPB is absolutely necessary to drive effective planning for conflict; conventional or unconventional. Take a read of Ceasar's The Gallic Wars for a good historical example, or review Knowing One's Enemies, which I've linked to before. The administration that led us into Iraq failed miserably on multiple counts.

However, the original piece Steven linked to was written in a tone of frustration and defeatism, using multiple false analogies to reinforce points not put in an operational context and ultimately offered no recommendations or solutions, or than to leave Iraq. A simple opinion piece; yes, it made points, but it lacks substance.

[Rank amateur]

and ultimately offered no recommendations or solutions, or than to leave Iraq.

Mr. Gentile can speak for himself, but I didn't see any inference that the US needs to leave Iraq.

Eventually, it became clear that the only sure way to eliminate the IED threat in Iraq would be to end the civil war.

If you believe we have a role to play in ending the civil war - and I don't see anywhere in the article where it says we don't - then we can stay.

I also agree with Rob that IEDs are here to stay and we'll see more if them; they're too effective, and too cheap for them to go away.

[Gian P Gentile]

A simple opinion piece; yes, it made points, but it lacks substance.

I don't want to appear arrogant and aloof here but do you think, Jedburg, you could do better with a 650 word limit? Right i certainly could have given more detail in a 6000 word piece, but then no oped page in the world would run it. With 6000 words maybe i could have changed Jedburg's mind of claiming that i used a "false analogy."

I am not a defeatist Jedburg, but a realist who has sadly had to talk on satellite phones with moms, dads, and wives after memorial services for soldiers in my squadron who had been killed by ieds and try to explain to them why it happened. Perhaps you should look into the mirror yourself and what you might see is an idealist who refuses to accept the fundamental cost of doing business in Iraq; dead American soldiers, marines, airmen, and sailors from IEDs that are a condition of the battlefield. I am not at all saying that the cost is not worth it, but rather trying to point out what the cost actually means in blood and treasure for our continued presence in the land between the two rivers.

gentile

[wm]

However, the original piece Steven linked to was written in a tone of frustration and defeatism, using multiple false analogies to reinforce points not put in an operational context and ultimately offered no recommendations or solutions, or than to leave Iraq. A simple opinion piece; yes, it made points, but it lacks substance.

I am not as clear as to the author's ultimate intent in writing the piece. LTC Gentile has since given us a little more insight in his response to Rob's post. But what his intention was really matters little anymore, for at least two reasons.

First, the piece is no longer what the author submitted. As LTC Gentile noted, the editors of the SF Chronicle chose to evoke editorial privilege and gut his 1200 word article. (I have my suspicions about their reasons, and they have nothing to do with an interest by the Chronicle's editors in saving ink and newsprint.)

Second, I think it is very important to recognize that the written word, once released to the public, is freed completely of its author's intentions. I viewed the op-ed as an expression of the author's struggle to come to grips with the "mission-welfare of the force" dilemma. We see another intrepretation in the quotation from Jedburgh above. I suspect many other readers will take it as an argument for not continuing the fight and for avoidiing involvement in future conflicts that devolve into COIN battles.

I hope that those who choose to publish, particularly in the mainstream meadia, carefully weigh the possibilities of their words and intentions being greatly misconstrued. When we mistake the effects of what we do or say on others, we can end up with some horrendous results. By most accounts, WWI resulted from a gross miscalculatiuon on the part of the Austro-Hungarians to the reaction to their crossing into Serbia in 1914. In a much less horrible example, we have recently been witness to a range of reactions to the Countererpunch piece in which Price mistook the intention of the authors of FM3-24.

[Rob Thornton]

Balance and Consistency awhile back (I can't remember the thread) got me over a hump (Ken is good at planting seeds that way). Terry telling me about what he and Frank Hoffman discussed (and then Frank's piece on the blog recently) speak to our evolving thinking on current and future threats, how they will structure themselves and what tactics they might use against us.

With all the discussion on organizational structure and doctrine in terms of our perspective, I lost sight of what I'm always saying people should not lose sight of - war is a social phenomena and as such we eventually fight where we live and live where we fight. I'm not trying to be confusing, but that helps me remember that people are involved and always have been. Perhaps because military history is not taught in the context of an engine of social change, it often is reduced to binary content where we only examine civilians in minor roles and concentrate instead on those things clearly identifiable with the combatants - until we started conducting counter-insurgency, then it became undeniable. I'm not saying that military history is devoid of such work, only that in our desire to examine military historical significance we tend to isolate it from its social roots. This is why I like reflections done where the author or theorist considers war within the context of society. I think this is important given the probabilities and possibilities of war, our political objectives given our perspective on why what happens in other places matters to us domestically, and our evolving understanding of what constitutes a threat and the social environments which create those threats (from the horrific events of 9/11 to the possibilities of pandemics and beyond).

I think this is important in considering IEDs - not only because they reflect the tactics and organizational structure of those employing them, but because they are telling of the enemy's political objectives and their will to continue its pursuit.

One side must decide that its no longer worth the effort to continue the pursuit of the original objective - either because new objectives have replaced the old ones, the original objectives have been met to some degree, or because the conditions and assumptions which gave rise to the original objectives are no longer valid.

IEDs I think offer a range of options commensurate with their type and effects. SVBIED types where 2 x dump trucks and an assault element designed to destroy a fortification, inflict mass casualties, gain public attention through the media, challenge resolve on different levels and deny the public a sense of security are high risk, high yield operations. As such they are planned out more, and if possible the enemy mitigates his own risk by conducting near simultaneous operations with his available means to diffuse our attention and create opportunities at the target. One of the best ways to target this operation I've seen is to disrupt it by desynchronizing his effort and increase his risk- and while there are ways to accomplish this, its not a given - you can do everything right, and sooner or later if they are committed enough they are going to get through to a target - unless the object in view no longer secures the commitment of the people required to carry it off, or those still committed are no longer available or no longer have the means to execute it.

As means become easier to come by and alternative ways offer similar effects at less risk, the level of commitment across the broader spectrum is easier to come by. So maybe the SVBIED into the IP station is no longer doable, but a directional EFP type IED with a high probability command detonation system in terrain that offers high yield/low risk is still a doable means of achieving the political goal even if the enemy lacks larger scale public support.

Its also important in considering how what has for sometime been one of our strengths, our ability to develop and field technological solutions to tactical problems, have been challenged by greater lethality in small packages that are hard to keep pace with, and further strain our ability to operate in the "away games". The evolution of the IED challenges the physics of deploying and sustaining a force big enough to meet the demands of securing a populace at price tag that is hard to beat. I'm a fan of the MRAP because I have no choice but to be - I want the best tech available to mitigate the easier to come by/easier to employ IEDs that result in MTBI and the BB in the beer can effect - I've seen guys in Buffaloes, Cougars, and RGs walk away from big VBIEDs and SVBIEDs where I've seen whole 1114/1151 five person crews killed and/or severely wounded.

We should absolutely do everything actively and passively technologically possible to provide the means by which our soldiers and marines can gain tactical and operational advantages. This is a long chain of stuff that includes ISR assets, force protection and Command & Control technologies - but these technological advantages are not silver bullets - they are only as good as the people who employ them, communicate through them, and analyze the information made available by them.

Technology quickly becomes dated, and because it is produced by people, its advantages are quickly identified by the enemy who will take the required steps to mitigate it. Only through agility and adaptiveness can we extend its shelf life. The shelf life might be sufficient if the objective is more military and less political, but if the objective requires greater political solvency as in the case with civil wars and popular insurgencies, then the longer the enemy will have to counter our technologies and increase both the physical and political strain on us - physical in the sense of fiscal means, R&D, production throughput on logistical burdens - political in the domestic strains which change the value of our original objectives. This is how I interpret the impact of IEDs and like technologies and tactics on the wars of today and tomorrow.

As if that were not bad enough, Frank and Terry have taken it to the next level - a smart state with sufficient resources is going to take advantage of the full curve either by developing the organic capability or through proxy and alliances. They will have a significant conventional capability while at the same time laying the ground work for a speedy transition to an Insurgency with all the middle ground covered - this all the while we question the value of our object in view (fear/honor/interest rationale) and the greater body politic exerts its own pressures. It should be understandable by the discussions we've had here how difficult it is for us to develop a force with military capabilities that counter that without a 3-5 year learning curve and strains that force us into other undesirable choices at home elsewhere around the globe.

With so much at stake I don't believe we can roll over, or become apathetic, but we must start looking at the problems differently, and making choices that provide the best long term flexibility and offer us the opportunity to be consistent in our goals through a balance we can sustain. It ain't easy, and I think we have a ways to go (maybe it never stops).

Best, Rob

[redbullets]

There's an RFI at the end of this post. Moderator, please let me know if I should shift this over to the RFI section.

I have been exploring the humanitarian impact of IEDs upon civlian populations for the last year and a half. The humanitarian community has, by and large, been avoiding this issue. This is primarily a result of the principles of nuetrality that mainstream NGOs opeate under, and the lack of technical intervention capacity possessed by even the more advanced members of the Humanitarian Mine Action community.

I'm dropping a proposal tomorrow with a USG donor to conduct a study of IED victimilzation in three countries and craft an approrirate version of Mine Risk Education (MRE, what used to be called Mine Awareness) aimed at translating behavior modification strategies from the Humanitarian Mine Action community (and others, such as HIV Awareness) to threat reduction for civlian populations with significant IED exposure. Call it IED Risk Education (IEDRE).

My outfit has developed IED Awareness curricula in the past, and will include in this effort an exploration of strategies to protect aid workers in addition to the beneficiaries they serve. Seemed rather tragically timelly to have been writing this proposal when news of the Algiers bombing arrived.

Given our landmine survey work over the years, I started fooling around with some comparisons between our survey data and open source IED attack reports. A small example:

During the two-year period between 2004 and 2006 (our Landmine Impact Surveys examine the 24 month period prior to arrival of the data collectors), there were 12 landmine/UXO victims in Ta’meem (Kirkuk) Governorate. Of these victims, three were killed and nine wounded. On a single day during that same period, 15 June 2005, a suicide bomber struck in the city of Kirkuk. In this attack, 23 civilians were killed and nearly 100 wounded.

I'm raising this disparity within my own community largely because of the substantial amount of resorces directly toward Humanitarian Mine Action during the past 15 years. Not to say that this response shouldn't be happening, but that a similarly vigorous effort should be directed toward reducing the exposure of at-risk populations to IED attack, and toward public health response for victims.

I'm kicking out an OP/ED next week aimed at galvanizing a bit of interest and action within the relief and development arena, donors included, and will introduce four principles of humanitarian response to IEDs.

I'm interested in hearing folks' thoughts on this, and very interested in data sources (unclassified, or able to be declassified) that we might use as we drive this effort forward.

Cheers,

[Chris Albon]

A little suggestion: Don't limit yourself to the direct health impacts of IEDs. Expand your research to include the indirect negative health consequences. Some examples off the top of my head: the halt of vaccination programs, flight of health professionals from the region, closure of medical clinics, halt of sanitation services (garage removal) etc.. etc.. When you include the indirect health consequences, the effect of IEDs on morbidity and mortality is going be to be orders of magnitude greater.

I know for a fact that after those chlorine truck IEDs the US started holding chlorine trucks at the border. This in turn led to a cholera epidemic (chlorine is used in some way to prevent cholera).

[Rex Brynen]

It seems to me that the challenge here is the limited options that civilian populations have, especially when those IEDs are deliberately targeted against locations where civilians must necessarily be as part of the fabric of their daily lives (markets, mosques, busy roads, etc). In contrast to mine casualties--where a significant proportion of casualties may come from ignoring warning signs, children failing to recognize mines and UXO, use of ad hoc, inadequate clearance methods, etc.--there is much less that civilians can do to reduce IED risks. Moreover, the IED risk is neither fixed in time or space, whereas the mine and UXO challenge may be much more so (leaving aside displacement due to weather or construction/clearance, or fresh mine laying due to continued hostilities).

What kinds and components of IED awareness education were you thinking might be effective, that aren't included in current mine awareness programmes (which typically include trip-wire type IEds and any suspicious ordnance)?

[Stan]

I agree with Rex; the majority of our most recent IED awareness program was very similar to our current UXO campaigns. Only the target audience changed to include adults over 50. We had a 10-year long mad bomber indiscriminately placing IEDs in residential areas and without any apparent motive (even now after a year of hearings he has yet to fully disclose his reasons).

The only commonalities were the general area where he liked to place his VOIEDs and the materials he used (thanks in part to our awareness campaign, one IED was rendered safe and recovered for forensics).

There was little hope in changing 100,000 people’s daily routine in a 10 square-kilometer residential area, so we concentrated on making people more aware and set up CCTVs. We counted on the folks that live in the general vicinity to review the recordings for what they conclude ‘doesn’t fit in my neighborhood’.

I’d be very interested in your four principles of humanitarian response to IEDs.

[redbullets]

I agree with Rex; the majority of our most recent IED awareness program was very similar to our current UXO campaigns. Only the target audience changed to include adults over 50. We had a 10-year long mad bomber indiscriminately placing IEDs in residential areas and without any apparent motive (even now after a year of hearings he has yet to fully disclose his reasons).

The only commonalities were the general area where he liked to place his VOIEDs and the materials he used (thanks in part to our awareness campaign, one IED was rendered safe and recovered for forensics).

There was little hope in changing 100,000 people’s daily routine in a 10 square-kilometer residential area, so we concentrated on making people more aware and set up CCTVs. We counted on the folks that live in the general vicinity to review the recordings for what they conclude ‘doesn’t fit in my neighborhood’.

I’d be very interested in your four principles of humanitarian response to IEDs.

Thanks, Stan. My response is similar in vein to what I said to Rex - in a humanitarian context, with such high victimization reported to be occcuring in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, the humanitarian community is currently clueless. All we know data-wise at the moment is that "its really bad" and we don't know if we can do anything about it, never mind what to do.

A lone mad-bomber (I'm not familier with the situation in Estonia, so pardon my ignorance) can be tracked/monitored, I suspect, by using commonly available GIS-based crime tracking systems. There are ready-to-use application extensions available from ESRI and a range of other compaines that allow that. And, as you pointed out, that was a much smaller population at-risk in a much smaller geographic area. The situation in countries where the IED threat is very high is a bit different than scattered whack jobs, I reckon. Hell, it might be harder, too hard, in those high-threat countries, but our community doesn't actually know much at the moment.

Our own IED Safety Training over the past few years has focused on what it sounds like yours did - signs to look for, things to avoid, who to report to, etc. Our organization has been somehow or another involved, victimized if you will, in five IED incidents in Afghanistan and Iraq, with serious injuries reulting from two of the incidents, so we take our safety and precautions very seriously. But, what I'm interested in learning with this effort is, if trends are able to be monitored and clarified, can large-scale behavior modification have some kind of positive impact.

I'm not suggesting that this somehow falls outside the Humanitarian Mine Action community - they're the only ones who will be initially willing to take this on if there's more that can be done to reduce victimization than is currently the case.

I'll send you my principles off line - I've tweaked them as much as I'm probably going to, but I'm reserving them to hopefully have a bit of impact among the relief/development folks.

Cheers,

[redbullets]

It seems to me that the challenge here is the limited options that civilian populations have, especially when those IEDs are deliberately targeted against locations where civilians must necessarily be as part of the fabric of their daily lives (markets, mosques, busy roads, etc). In contrast to mine casualties--where a significant proportion of casualties may come from ignoring warning signs, children failing to recognize mines and UXO, use of ad hoc, inadequate clearance methods, etc.--there is much less that civilians can do to reduce IED risks. Moreover, the IED risk is neither fixed in time or space, whereas the mine and UXO challenge may be much more so (leaving aside displacement due to weather or construction/clearance, or fresh mine laying due to continued hostilities).

What kinds and components of IED awareness education were you thinking might be effective, that aren't included in current mine awareness programmes (which typically include trip-wire type IEds and any suspicious ordnance)?

Thanks. The purpose of the study is to actually examine this and figure out what, if anything can be added to/extracted from MRE and other types of awareness campaigns to reduce exposure, in addition to pushing the increased public health impacts of victimization. I'm not aware of anyone in the humanitarian community who's done a serious study of the targeting around civilians in high-threat countries to illuminate trends such as target locations, time(s) of day, groups being singled out, etc. We do that in our own way in the Humanitarian Mine Action arena, but tools such as IMSMA do not support this in an IED context for reasons that include what you said above - landmines/UXO are static, and IEDs are active. That's a major theme and discussion I've included in the proposal I'm finishing.

Based on experience in Afghanistan and Iraq during the past six years, we've developed an analysis tool for the humanitarian community that does trend analysis of safety and security incidents, among a host of other things, and we're going to use this in our study to try and gel some targeting trends, and from those extract behavior modification that is doable.

I guess the whole point is that the humanitarian community is leaving this issue alone because its perceived as too hard. That conclusion appears to me to be drawn from anecdotal as opposed to empirical evidence. If you can advise housewives in Baghdad to do their shopping in little shops on side streets instead of high-traffic common markets, or advise fathers that they're better off praying at home this month due to trend X, there may be a victim reduction outcome. However, no one knows because to date this is all based on assumptions, or data that's been looked at from a primarily tactical/military perspective. We realize that any successful future risk education effort around IEDs would need to be very nimble and fluid as trends shift, and bad guys start monitoring campaign efforts.

Besides, why does more money go into Humanitarian Mine Action efforts in some places than into preventable disease? Few would argue that landmines/UXO claim more lives than a range of preventable maladies. Never been able to quite figure that out myself, but I suspect one reason is that its a lot simpler and easier to quantify landmines removed/destroyed than it is to quantify people who didn't get sick.

Cheers,

[Tom Odom]

Stan

what is the pull today between demining and UXO disposal? I know that when setting up the demining op in Rwanda, I could get US monies for demining. I could not get them for UXOs--which were in fact the greater problem. has that tug of war changed?

seems to me it would play in this idea as well. the lines between an IED, a UXO, and a "mine" are very semantic, distinguished by targeting or lack or targeting to a large degree.

best

Tom

[Stan]

Hey Joe !

Thanks. The purpose of the study is to actually examine this and figure out what, if anything can be added to/extracted from MRE and other types of awareness campaigns to reduce exposure, in addition to pushing the increased public health impacts of victimization. I'm not aware of anyone in the humanitarian community who's done a serious study of the targeting around civilians in high-threat countries to illuminate trends such as target locations, time(s) of day, groups being singled out, etc. We do that in our own way in the Humanitarian Mine Action arena, but tools such as IMSMA do not support this in an IED context for reasons that include what you said above - landmines/UXO are static, and IEDs are active. That's a major theme and discussion I've included in the proposal I'm finishing.

Glad you brought up IMSMA’s applications and inherent shortcomings when dealing with what Estonia considers ‘other aspects of Demining and UXO clearance’. More often than not, UXO are the lifeblood of our IED builders (our criminals scoop out the HE and sell the metal – a bit more refined and business savvy than their Iraqi brethren).

Because Estonia’s structure here includes typical law enforcement duties (sweeps and post blast to name a few), we deal with both UXO and IED threats. We decided long ago to tailor the IMSMA platform to meet our needs in both arenas. That is, the trends you mention above. We have yet to ‘master’ the system, but what we do have in our DB helped us catch our last mad bomber. Granted, Estonia is far smaller than Iraq and Afghanistan, and the criminals far fewer.

Regards, Stan