Using Drones To Counter IEDs

A military task force tries a new method against bombers in Afghanistan

American commanders in Afghanistan are for the first time systematically using aerial drones to kill militants planting roadside bombs, the low-tech, low-cost weapon that has emerged as the biggest threat to U.S. and coalition forces throughout the country. The shift, the details of which have not been reported previously, represents a sharp escalation in the military's ongoing fight against improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, which account for nearly 60 percent of coalition battle deaths in Afghanistan.

The push is being led by a new military unit called Task Force Falcon Strike. It began operating in southern Afghanistan late last year and expanded over the summer to eastern Afghanistan, a violent, insurgent-dominated area along the porous border with Pakistan.

In recent weeks, Falcon Strike drones have been targeting bomb-planters in the eastern provinces of Ghazni and Logar, according to a Defense official with knowledge of the group's activities. Between June 27 and July 7, Falcon Strike helped kill at least 26 militants burying IEDs in the two areas, while also reducing the number of roadside bombs there by 62 percent, the Defense official said.

Falcon Strike is working closely with Task Force ODIN, a once-secret Army unit that has been at the forefront of the military's fight against IEDs in both Iraq and Afghanistan. ODIN drones and aircraft killed hundreds of bomb-planters in Iraq, but in Afghanistan, the task force had been limited for years to what amounted to a pure surveillance mission. ODIN drones monitored key Afghan roads for signs of new bombs, but the robotic aircraft weren't being used to target individual militants.

That's all changing, according to senior military officials. Lt. Gen. Michael Oates, who heads the military's Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, said in an interview that drones were now being used for "find, fix, finish" missions designed to kill bomb-planters or to help ground units track and arrest them.

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Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).