Afghan-Taliban using high-tech undetectable bombs to attack NATO forces India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

In order to inflict maximum casualties on NATO forces stationed in Afghanistan, The Taliban has been making high-tech and deadlier bombs, which are hard-to-detect due to their nonmetal components, according to a confidential intelligence report. According to Pentagon's Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organisation report, Taliban's switch to use improvised explosive devices (IEDs) instead of larger anti-armour bombs has enabled the terrorist outfit to produce more bombs and target more US troops. The Taliban is now using plastic instead of using metal-dominated explosives, and ground troops are finding it hard to detect the buried IEDs with portable mine-detectors, The Daily Times quoted a report in the Washington Times, as saying. "There is an urgent need to identify new man-portable detection platforms to expand the ability of US troops to detect anti-personnel IED-mines," the report concludes. US soldiers in the area around Now Zad, northwest of Kandahar face a constant threat from hidden IEDs, the report reveales. "Smaller, lighter, more quickly constructed and quite often triggered by a victim-operated switch [booby trap], these IEDs have been a significant factor in labelling Now Zad the most dangerous location with the highest US casualty rate in either the Afghan or Iraq theatres," the paper said. A military source said the Taliban were shifting to small IEDs for a number of reasons. "The Taliban is also thwarting detection by using long pull-cords rather than an electronic signal to ignite IEDs. This way, the bomb cannot be defeated by electronic countermeasures on vehicles and aircraft that jam the signal," he said.