On Sunday October 4, 2012 Assistant Inspector General (AIG) Special Branch Shafqat Malik, who heads the bomb disposal squad in Khyber Pukhtunkhwa and is the country’s lead expert on improvised explosive devices (IEDs), heard news about a small bomb blast in a house at Wadpaga, a village near Peshawar. He sent his men to the scene but they were told by the residents of the house that it was a small cylinder blast. They told officials of the bomb squad that they could not enter the house as there were women inside. Bomb squad officials informed their boss about the situation. He decided to visit the place himself. “The owners were not ready to allow us enter the house and told me again that it was a gas cylinder blast. I was about to leave the village when I recovered a splinter from the scene. It was a splinter of an artillery shell. I forced entry into the house and found it to be a factory of homemade bombs. We recovered 117 artillery shells of heavy caliber, cutters and dyes. We also recovered 65 kg of explosive material”, said Shafqat Malik.
IEDs are destructive devices prepared from homemade, military or commercial explosive materials that are put together in ways other than traditional military means. “As IEDs are improvised, they can come in a range of forms and shapes, from a small ball-bomb to suicide jackets to huge devices such as a car or truck bomb capable of causing massive damage.” Malik says, “They contain initiator, switch, main charge, power source, and a container. There are 17 easily available items in the market such as fertilizers, gunpowder, and hydrogen peroxide, which can be used as explosive material in IEDs. To enhance its impacts, additional materials such as ball bearings, glass, nails or metal fragments are used”, Malik said that different components of IEDs are transported and mixed at the attack site.
IEDs have become a major weapon of the terrorists in war against terror, both in Afghanistan and Pakistan. On Sunday January 13, 2013, as many as 18 security personnel were killed and another 21 were injured after militants attacked two convoys with IEDs in Razmak and Charsadda. The recent attack in Quetta, in which more than 85 Hazara Shias were killed, was also an IED attack. According to a study published in a Pakistani armed forces medical journal in June, 2012 the Combined Military Hospital Peshawar, from 1st June 2008 to 30th May 2010, received a total of 516 combat casualties and sixty nine percent (356) cases had injury due to splinters from IEDs. According to a senior military official, Pakistan is among the top victims of IED attacks by militants. “During the last one decade, some 33,150 incidents have taken place across Pakistan, claiming the lives of 11,250 Pakistanis and injuring over 21,000”, he said, adding that the Pakistan army had planned to set up a new force comprising of three units to fight the menace of IEDs.
For Pakistan, IEDs attacks within the country are not the only issue; it has often been accused by US and other Nato countries of doing little to stop the smuggling of Calcium Ammonium Nitrate (CAN) fertilizer to Afghanistan. According to the Americans, about 70 percent IEDs are devised from the CAN fertiliser, which is produced in Pakistan and smuggled to Afghanistan. In 2010, US linked Pakistan’s aid to its efforts to stop smuggling of CAN and other material to Afghanistan. In December 2012, Lieutenant General Michael D. Barbero, Director Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization US Department of Defense told the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations that in the past two years in Afghanistan, IED events increased by 80 percent, from 9,300 in 2009 to 16,800 in 2011. There have been nearly 14,500 IED events in 2012. “More than 60 percent of U.S. combat casualties in Afghanistan, including those wounded in action, are a result of IEDs. This year, 1,874 U.S. casualties have been caused by IEDs”, he said that fertilizer-based explosives still remain the greatest challenge in Afghanistan. “About 70 percent IEDs deployed against US army in Afghanistan are made with CAN — a common agricultural fertilizer produced in, and/or transited through, Pakistan despite a countrywide ban on the import of ammonium nitrate-based fertilizers by the Government of Afghanistan”, he said.
On January 21, 2013 a meeting of the Counter Improvised Explosive Device (C-IED) working group was held at GHQ Rawalpindi. DG military operations from Pakistan and Afghanistan and deputy chief of staff of Nato led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) attended the meeting. Pakistan was urged in the meeting both by Afghanistan and Isaf to crack down on the fertilizers used in IEDs.
Most of the casualties caused to the coalition forces in Afghanistan are done through IEDs by militants,” Brig. (ret.) Saad Muhammed, a Peshawar defence analyst, told Central Asia Online. “Similarly, the militants are making lethal use of IEDs against Pakistan’s security forces engaged in the fight against terrorists.”
Curbing the transportation of material that is used to make IEDs – like chips, fertilisers, explosives or other electronics – is a Herculean effort and results in other social problems. “It is true that 70-80 percent casualties, both in Afghanistan and Pakistan, are because of IEDs. But, Pakistan cannot put a complete ban on production of CAN fertilisers as it is required by farmers. Insurgents have also been using potassium chlorate in IEDs”, said Brigadier (R) Saad Muhammed, a defence analyst. He said there is hardly any technology which can neutralize IEDs. “Pakistan and US have been working on the issue since 2003-04 but have not succeeded in getting results”, he said, adding that IEDs had been used in Afghanistan against USSR as well. “In Afghanistan, they have piles of arms and ammunition. Most of it came during Afghan war against USSR in 1980s. They are still using the same stockpile against the US”, he said. The latest expertise in IEDs, he says, came to this region from Iraq through Al Qaeda. “They have made such powerful IEDs that they can destroy tanks as well”, he said.
If its supply to market is controlled, its prices will definitely go up. Those who could offer the best price will purchase it,” Saad said. “So the fertiliser is not going to be bought by farmers but by militants who offer the best price. Similarly, controlling and banning explosives is also a big problem, as they’re used in construction. The most difficult task is to keep track of who is buying the material and how it would be used.”
Experts said it was easy to turn CAN into a bomb. “Terrorists either grind or boil CAN fertilizer to separate the calcium from the nitrate, which is mixed with fuel oil, packed into a jug or box and then detonated”, said Asmatullah Khan Wazir, Director Research and Development, Research Advocacy and Development Organization (RAD). Wazir, who has worked extensively on the Impact of IEDs in Pakistan, says that 50 kg of CAN can be used to make around two to four bombs, depending on whether they are targeting vehicles or foot patrols. “Land mines and IEDs are not major threats to military but also to civilians living in war zones in Pakistan and also in major cities. During a study we found that in 2011 there were at least 636 casualties from landmines and victim-activated IEDs. In tribal areas, militants use military explosives as they are available to them in abundance while in big cities like Lahore, Karachi they use CAN or Potassium Chlorate in IEDs”.
Asmatullah Wazir said that use of small toy IEDs increased in tribal areas of Pakistan and now the same technology is being moved towards big cities. “They are also known as ‘cheapest assassins’. In 2011, government of Pakistan foiled a plan of terrorism when they were planning to used IEDs in the form of perfume bottles to target senior government officials and ministers. In January this year three people in Karachi got injured when they were attacked with a tennis ball IED”, he said that across Pakistan, most victims (up to 57 percent) of mines and IEDs in 2011 were civilians. He said that there must be strong intelligence regarding those who are making these IEDs and those who are using these IEDs against security forces and also target civilians. “To counter IEDs, intelligence is more important. Traders can unintentionally help terrorist organizations by selling electric circuits, long range remote controls, activation switches and CAN fertilizers”, he said, further adding that a number of other countries affected by IEDs have introduced legislation to control this menace but Pakistan hasn’t yet made any progress on the legal side. He said that IEDs are not a phenomenon only in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. According to US Defense Department, in the first nine months of 2011, an average of 608 IEDs attacks occurred per month in 99 countries.
Shafqat Malik said that Pakistan had taken a lot of steps in the last couple of years to control and regulate the material used in IEDs. “In Pakistan, they use Potassium Chlorate, which is available in abundance in Pakistan as it is used in textile and match industries. We have been trying to regulate its trade in Pakistan. We have also requested CAN producing factories in Pakistan to reduce percentage of nitrate in this fertilizer. It would make it difficult for terrorists to use it in IEDs”, he said.
In June 2011, the government of Pakistan adopted a national counter-IED strategy. There are two parts of this strategy: offensive and defensive. Offensive part deals with strengthening our intelligence and attacking the hideouts of terrorists’ IED experts. While part of the strategy deals with regulating the trade of fertilizers and other things. Checking its cross border movement and to build Pakistan’s counter-IED capacity through equipment and training. Pakistan has also made a national counter-IED forum in interior ministry. Army, intelligence agencies, civil defence, provincial governments, ministry of foreign affairs, Pakistan Agricultural Research Council, ministry of industries, ministry of information and broadcasting, ministry of interior, Fata Secretariat, Pak-Arab Fertilizer are part of this forum. Its last meeting was held in the second week of January 2013 at Rawalpindi. The forum discussed regulatory mechanism for effective control of the explosive material and CAN fertilizer from various regional and extra-regional countries.
Military officials said that Pakistan alone could not fight out this battle against IEDs. “We have been trying our level best but we will need help of all stakeholders”, said a senior military official. He seemed right as US spent around USD 17 billion on various anti-IED gears over the last one decade and the USD 45 billion on mine-resistant vehicles. But it has not succeeded in controlling the IED related casualties.
The writer is a journalist based in Islamabad.
