As U.S. troops continue surging into Afghanistan, military commanders expect the number of Improvised Explosive Devices (or IEDs) to continue growing.<\/p>\n
The IED threat has also factored into recent military operations such as the ongoing offensive in Marjah.<\/p>\n
Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Tadd Sholtis, spokesman for General Stanley McChrystal, tells Fox \u201cone of the values of Marjah as an objective is its role as an IED manufacturing hub.\u201d<\/p>\n
The homemade bombs have also had an impact on the pace of military operations.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had to proceed carefully through what would be a minefield of IEDs (in Marjah),\u201d Sholtis told Fox.<\/p>\n
Looking ahead to the major offensive into Kandahar, General McChrystal told Pentagon reporters on Wednesday, \u201cI think they’ll (enemy forces) primarily use IEDs\u2026 to try to give a sense that Kandahar and the area cannot be secured.\u201d<\/p>\n
Statistics compiled by the U.S. military in Afghanistan are staggering.<\/p>\n
In February alone, 721 IEDs exploded or were defused across Afghanistan \u2013 killing 28 coalition troops. The roadside bombs continue to be the number one cause of American troop casualties. And the U.S. military reports far more Afghan civilians than coalition members die as a result of IED emplacement.<\/p>\n
The U.S. military says there were 8,159 IED incidents recorded last year \u2013 up from 3,867 in 2008.<\/p>\n
Part of the McChrystal strategy is if the U.S. and its coalition partners can win the support of the local population, the roadside bomb blasts will drop substantially, which has been the case in Iraq.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver time, IEDs can be a self-defeating tactic that alienates the population from the insurgent cause,\u201d said Sholtis.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, McChrystal says, \u201cthere are counter-IED efforts that have been significantly increased recently. And so I think that we have already made progress.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As U.S. troops continue surging into Afghanistan, military commanders expect the number of Improvised Explosive Devices (or IEDs) to continue growing. The IED threat has also factored into recent military operations such as the ongoing offensive in Marjah. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Tadd Sholtis, spokesman for General Stanley McChrystal, tells Fox \u201cone of the values […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5940,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-443649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5940"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443649\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}