This is a superb article from National Defence magazine about Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) in Iraq and the Insurgents who have earned the respect of their British and American foes for sheer cunning and inventiveness.
There is a full scale spectrum war underway in Iraq too as this article illustrates. It is also clear that Iran helping the insurgents.
Coalition forces are engaged in an ongoing invisible combat in the radio and infrared spectra, officials at the conference said. And it is a battle where both sides are allocating resources to improve their warriors’ knowledge and skills.Richard Wittstruck, chief systems engineer at the Army’s program executive office of intelligence, electronic warfare and sensors, said, ‚Äúwe have a silent and continuous war going on ‚Ķ It is truly spectral combat. They want to own and operate in areas of spectrum.‚Äù
The Pentagon established the joint IED defeat task force in 2004. Since then, the use and effectiveness of the devices has evolved. Fifty-five U.S. troops lost their lives at the hands of insurgents using IEDs in October, the worst month since the war began, according to the Iraq Index, a report compiled by the Brookings Institute. The index does not track the number of IED-related injuries sustained by U.S. troops, or casualties suffered by Iraqi civilians, security forces or contractors.
Military and civilian experts working on the IED problem paint a picture of an enemy who is constantly improving his ability to manufacture and detonate such weapons.
…The enemy is not a ragtag bunch of rebels running around with AK-47s, officials said. The early stated goal of finding high-tech solutions to defeat a low-tech weapon is giving way to the realization that the bombs are growing in sophistication.
While the Pentagon’s IED task force is taking a holistic approach ‚Äî spending millions of dollars on bettering armor, boosting training and developing sensors ‚Äî the enemy also is making long-term plans and spending its funds accordingly, Wittstruck said.
Extremist groups are sending recruits to engineering colleges and universities to learn how to both manufacture IEDs and control radio spectrum. Citing intelligence reports, he said terrorist cells see education as a key to succeeding in “spectral combat.”
In the short-term, IEDs continue to plague troops. There is no silver bullet to defeat the 90 different detonation methods, Pentagon officials have said.
For bombs triggered through the airwaves, the battle for control of the radio spectrum continues. While the Pentagon has released few details on the specific technology it is using to thwart the bombs, several officers at the Milcom conference said radio jammers have shown their limitations.
‚ÄúWe have incident after incident of collisions, near misses and a commander having to turn off his jammer ‚Ķ so he can talk on the radio,‚Äù Lawrence said. ‚ÄúThis is a huge challenge that we’ve got to work on very quickly.‚Äù
If a patrol comes under attack and a soldier creates a notch in the jammer’s frequency to radio for help, the unit opens the door for insurgents to find that hole and detonate a roadside bomb, said Lt. Gen. Walter E. Buchanan, commander of the 9th Air Force and U.S. Central Command Air Forces, at a gathering of military writers recently.
The issue of ‚Äúelectronic fratricide,‚Äù where friendly communications or jammers cause outages detrimental to U.S. forces, is growing, Buchanan said, adding that he’s never seen a worse electronic environment. ‚ÄúAround the Baghdad area, my pilots feel like they’re flying with the squelch on because of the static and interference we get.‚Äù
Shea said, ‚Äúwe’ve got such a proliferation of electro-communication devices and information technology devices out there in the battle space, that it’s kind of run away from us. We’re creating problems that we would have never imagined perhaps as recently as five or six years ago.‚Äù
…Keith Masback, assistant deputy director for source operations at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, said such innovations point toward an adaptive enemy.
‚ÄúThey’re deceiving our sensors. They’re fooling our analysis, and they’re challenging us in every front. Whether it’s IEDs, or tactics, techniques and procedures, we must be learners, and we must be adaptive,‚Äù he said. MORE
{ 0 comments… add one now }