Improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, remain the deadliest threat to American and allied forces. In Afghanistan, 36 NATO troops have been killed by the bombs in just the last 30 days.

The American effort to fight the bombs remains largely secret. But every year, the military’s Joint IED Defeat Organization releases an annual report, detailing its progress in the battle against the jury-rigged explosives, and how it spends its billions. The latest of those reports was just released. And it discusses several counter-IED projects that have not previously been disclosed.

Last year, according to the report, JIEDDO spent $138 million on airborne detector to hunt for bombs from the sky. That includes $22 million on VADER (“Vehicle and Dismount Exploitation Radar”). It spots the tracks of moving targets — like insurgents and their trucks — from above. “Two VADER prototype systems have flown more than 127 flight tests,” according to the report. JIEDDO also backed aerial sensors that might spot disturbances in the ground — an indication of command wires.

JIEDDO poured another $51 million into the Vehicle Optics Sensor System, a bomb-spotting, day-and-night camera, mounted on a 25-foot mast. 538 of the systems were sent to the Army last fiscal year. The organization spent $17 million on 20 radar and video arrays, meant to stop suicide bombers before they hit U.S. checkpoints.

An undisclosed amount went to Keyhole, an “enhanced optics system” for “snipers and unit-designated marksmen,” the report notes. “Keyhole delivers an all-weather, day-or-night targeting capability to defeat and deter IED emplacers.” (Shoot bomb-planters, in other words.) 158 of the sniper enhancers were sent to the warzone last year.

Last year, JIEDDO spent nearly $15 million on Wolfhound, a first-of-its kind “direction-finding system” that infantrymen can use to locate insurgents’ “personal communications devices in Afghanistan.” 69 of the systems were sent into the field for evaluation. Nearly $5 million went towards 55 “Devil Pups,” small bomb-handling robots. Another $16 million was spent on upgraded, hand-held metal detectors.

JIEDDO also decided to end a number of programs. Those included a remote-control Humvee project, a plane-mount UHF radar, and an “x-ray apparatus” called “Snarf.”

Several more programs have been handed off to other arms of the military, including some of JIEDDO’s most intriguingly secretive operations. A gamma ray truck-screener is now with the Air Force. A “highly-classified” signals intelligence effort called “Tangletamer” today belongs to the super-secret NSA. Special Operations Command is in charge of “Native Echo,” a “non-attributable multi-media influence effort.” (Last year, the Senate Armed Services Committee recommended cutting $34 million for the project.)

The biggest line item in JIEDDO’s budget, however, was a $367 million “Counter-IED Operations Integration Center.” The Center includes computer modellers who help tactical units prep for the battlefield by buillding simulated warzones. Also working there are social scientists, who try to decode the “cultural context” of the warzones, “to understand insurgent behaviors, and to target enemy networks.” It’s one project in a huge, multi-billion array of efforts to stop the simplest, deadliest weapons today.

But despite billions of dollars spent — and counter-IED technology issued to every unit in the field — the bomb attacks are only increasing. Every time the U.S. builds a better jammer that prevents IEDs from being remotely-triggered, the insurgents switch up, and turn to bombs detonated by command wires. Every time the U.S. fields a better metal detector, the insurgents start making their IEDs from fertilzer and wood. The cat-and-mouse game between bombers and bomb-stoppers continues. Not even the wind-down of the Afghanistan war (whenever that happens) will mean an end the fight. JIEDDO estimates there are 250 improvised bomb incidents a month — outside Iraq and Afghanistan.

Photo: Flickr / Rodneykeene

See Also:

• Stopping Afghanistan’s Fertilizer Bomb Factories
• Danger Room in Afghanistan: Helmand’s Bomb Fight, Up Close and …
• Secret New Sensors Sniff For Afghanistan’s Fertilizer Bombs …
• This Guy Has Found 177 Bombs in Afghanistan
• Fighting Afghanistan’s Dumbed-Down — and Deadly — Bombs
• Danger Room in Afghanistan: Hansel and Gretel vs. Roadside Bombs …
• High-Tech Army Team Turns From Killers to Airborne Spies

Authors: Noah Shachtman

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