Troops on foot patrol in Afghanistan are finding an increasing number of makeshift bombs before they explode, helping to defuse the effectiveness of the Taliban's No. 1 weapon, military data show.
The data show that high-tech equipment may not be the key to finding and eliminating the IED threat, says Dakota Wood, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and a retired Marine officer. The key is likely to be a wary infantryman on foot, perhaps with a bomb-sniffing dog or hand-held detector.
"Training and experience are key to counter-IED operations," Wood says. "There will always be a technological contest between explosives and explosive detectors. It seems the humans involved on both sides are the real determinants to success."