IED Reporting and Incidents

Improvised explosive devices (IED) account for the majority of civilian casualties in Afghanistan and the reporting and incidents based on the use of this tactic is an important metric for assessing the COIN effort evolution in Kunar and Nuristan. The ability to report IED’s and willingness to assist U.S. forces in disarming and removing these bombs illustrates that the local population feels safe enough to work against the insurgents. It also illustrates the level of trust the civilian population has in the ISAF force’s ability to keep them safe after the devices have been removed. More specifically, they trust that the counterinsurgent forces are able to secure the area so insurgent cannot return later and punish the people who have cooperated with the U.S forces. Because of the significant amount of civilian casualties that IED’s produce throughout Afghanistan, reporting also indicates whether the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) are able to control areas where they have been given command.

Insurgents target Afghans in the security forces as they see them as traitors to the cause and the country. They often refer to the security forces personnel as “puppets.”⁸² Therefore the ability to conduct their own security operations and combating the spread of IED’s is an aspect of the counterinsurgency that indicates that the local population has faith in the

80International Security and Assistance Force, COIN: Common Sense, , Volume 1 Issue 7 2011: p. 7-8

81 Ibid. p. 7-8

82 Zabihullah Mujahid, 3 Puppets Killed in Logar Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan May 30 2012

http://www.shahamat-english.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=18471:3-puppets-killed-in-logar&catid=1:news&Itemid=2 (accessed 05-29-2012)

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Government of Afghanistan and, perhaps more importantly that they have faith that local Afghan security forces are not corrupt and supportive of the insurgents.

Examining the monthly trends that ISAF have published from September 2011 to May 2012 gives an updated image on how the different aspects listed above comes into play when analyzing the COIN effort. The reports show that Regional Command East (RC-East) has the most enemy initiated attacks, that means the insurgents initiates the engagement, firing first or detonating IED’s directed at the U.S and ANSF forces.⁸³ From late 2011 there is an increase in overall attacks in Afghanistan and about 39 percent of all the violence in Afghanistan occurs in RC-East, with a significant amount in Kunar and Nuristan.⁸⁴ It would appear from the statistics that because of the extremely harsh winter experienced in 2011 the level of insurgent activity has been lower than in previous years and this may explain the decrease in attacks. In terms of IED reporting the interest is in generally low, it would appear, especially in contested areas where the risk of retaliatory attacks from insurgents outweighs the local populations’ inclination to report an IED. This is regardless of the fact that the highest number of civilian casualties in Afghanistan and in RC-East is attributed to insurgent’s mines and indiscriminate use of IED’s.⁸⁵ It would seem that in terms of collaboration on work against the use of improvised explosive devices there is much that needs to be done. The statistics that ISAF has released on their website indicate a stagnation of progress throughout this period. Against this background, if the COIN strategy was working as intended one should expect to see an increase in reporting since the use of IEDs presents one of the most significant threats to the civilian population.

A report from the Center of Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) shows that the overall turn in rate, meaning the number of IED’s that civilians report are stable and low. In total for the whole of 2009 and 2010 there were 365 IEDs that had been turned in by the local population. ⁸⁶ These are numbers for the whole country of Afghanistan and they indicate a fairly low turn in rate. However, the numbers from the ISAF Monthly trends which are updated monthly indicate a larger number, and it is possible to assert that numbers that the CSIS report indicates does not take into account what the ISAF reports do. In what seems to be a rising trend, the number of IED’s found and cleared has increased after the CSIS report

83 International Security and Assistance Force Monthly Trends September 2011 to May 2012 http://www.isaf.nato.int/article/news/monthly-trends.html (accessed 05-29-2012)

84 International Security and Assistance Force Monthly Trends September 29, October 15, November 28 and December 21 2011: p. 5 (each document) http://www.isaf.nato.int/article/news/monthly-trends.html (accessed 05-29-2012)

85 Ibid. p. 6 (each document)

86 Anthony H. Cordesman, IED Metrics for Afghanistan November 11 2011: p. 3

31 put forward its findings. The report on monthly progress from ISAF shows that a large

percentage of IED’s have been discovered and disposed of, this includes the ones that are turned in. One could argue that the report made by CSIS does not take into account that civilians may have reported an IED and in so doing assisted the coalition forces in removing it. In the report on IED’s it would seem that it counts the number of instances where the civilian population itself has physically brought in IED’s. The reason for this interpretation is the discrepancy between the numbers that are shown in the IED report compared to that of the Monthly Trends released by the coalition forces. It seems unlikely that the number should increase almost fifty percent from mid-2010 to mid-2012.⁸⁷ This is unlikely because the report from CSIS indicates a stable level of turn in over a period of three years and if that was the case it does not seem likely that a breakthrough would happen in the course of a few months.⁸⁸

Also, the level of turn in, in Kunar would appear to be higher than in Nuristan. Kunar has a significantly higher threat level than Nuristan. The number of casualties in Kunar is four times higher than in any of the other provinces. That indicates that the insurgent effort is more focused in Kunar than in Nuristan. This could be the reason why one can see a higher number of reporting in this area rather than in Nuristan. However, it is worth mentioning that the focus by U.S troops has been on Kunar rather than Nuristan and this may explain the lower level of reporting in that province. A higher number of U.S forces would create a higher level of IED incidents, which all of the reports indicate. ⁸⁹

To consider the evolution of COIN with respect to IED reporting in Nuristan and Kunar the development seems to have reached what could be described as a ceiling. It is probably neither as bleak as the CSIS report would indicate and nor positive as the ISAF reports. With regard to the operational updates that ISAF posts on their websites it is

seemingly mostly positive and from that it is possible to make to qualified guesses as to how the COIN effort is going. The number of incidents has in terms of events and casualties been high. This can be seen both from the UNAMA reports on civilian casualties as well as from the ISAF reports on the monthly trends in each regional command. The level of IED reporting based on the local population’s willingness to assist is not necessarily low when examined along with other factors. The trust between the counterinsurgents in the area as well as the

87 International Security and Assistance Force Monthly Trends September 29, October 15, November 28 and December 21 2011: p. 5 (each document) http://www.isaf.nato.int/article/news/monthly-trends.html (accessed 05-29-2012)

88 Anthony H. Cordesman IED Metrics for Afghanistan November 11 2011: p. 3

89 Icasualties, Fatalities by Province 2011 http://icasualties.org/OEF/ByProvince.aspx (accessed 06-01-2012)

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trust in local security forces impacts the level of reporting. This is an issue that makes this metric difficult to narrow and give an exact number to examine. Rather it is far more useful to see the level of “turn in” that the CSIS report contains in light of the ISAF reports, which seem to be more positive than it would appear at first glance. IED reporting is connected to a larger set of factors, and among those the communication with the local people is of great importance.

More specifically, to counter IED’s and specifically the placing of these explosives, a key aspect is to maintain the ability to communicate efficiently with the local population. A large number of the articles in COIN: Common Sense focus on how to communicate with the people in the provinces in a way that provides a two way street of information. If the local population provides information the U.S forces must be able through dialog and action to show that they are capable of removing threats from the area. This is particularly important with regard to IED’s which seems to have some positive trends, as more than 50% of them are neutralized, compared to 45% in 2011 which according to both ISAF and CSIS show a

negative trend from 2008.⁹⁰ In all the statistics on IED attacks the fluctuation of a few percent up and down does not indicate that the insurgents’ ability to use IED’s as their primary

weapon is diminishing, but rather it seems to have stagnated and has stopped at a

unacceptably high level throughout the beginning of the Obama administrations new strategy and till today. This could indicate that the COIN effort in terms of the neutralization of IED’s and cooperating with the local population in this regard is not going as well as one could expect even with an increased number of forces conducting operations.