In a desolate field outside Kabul, an Afghan soldier hunches over a knee-high robot equipped with cameras, multidirectional pincers and tank-treads built for rough terrain. Carefully, he attaches four bottles of water and a tiny explosive charge to the robot. He uses a remote control to guide it 50 metres away to his target — a simulated backpack bomb.
“Explosion! Explosion! Explosion!” shouts the soldier, Naqibullah Qarizada, in a warning to others nearby. Then he remotely detonates the charge.
A small dust cloud kicks up. If all has gone well, the blast has pushed the water into the bomb with enough force to knock out its triggering mechanism. But to be safe, his partner, Hayatullah, climbs into a heavy protective suit before lumbering over to pluck out the blasting cap and seal it in a fortified box.
The two men are among hundreds of Afghan soldiers training to take over the dangerous fight against the war’s biggest killers — the Taliban-planted bombs that kill and maim thousands of people each year on and around the country’s roads and towns.
A few years ago, there were almost no Afghan bomb disposal experts. Now, there are 369 but that’s far from enough. The international coalition is rushing to train hundreds more before the exit of most coalition forces by the end of next year.
Each day on average, two to three roadside or buried bombs explode somewhere in Afghanistan, according to numbers compiled by the United Nations, which says that the explosives killed 868 civilians last year, 40 per cent of the civilian deaths in insurgent attacks.
Among international forces, buried or roadside bombs accounted for 64 per cent of the 3,300 coalition troops killed or wounded last year, the NATO force says.
Known in military parlance as improvised explosives devices (IEDs), the bombs have long been a favourite Taliban weapon that can be remotely detonated by radio or mobile phone when a target passes by or triggered by pressure, like a vehicle driving over it.
The U.S. military has over the years developed advanced detection and disposal techniques that manage to defuse about 40 to 50 IEDs each day, says Colonel Ace Campbell, chief of the Counter-IED training unit.
The coalition is working to transfer that knowledge to the Afghans who will be responsible once most foreign troops leave next year, and Colonel Campbell says Afghan teams are now finding and disposing about half of the bombs most days.
“Whenever I hear about an IED or I find one myself maybe you will laugh, but I become very happy,” says Mr. Hayatullah (28), who has completed the highest level of training. “I am happy because it is my duty to defuse it, and I will save the lives of several people.”
