An Cosantóir

18 | Man by Wesley Bourke Photos by Cpl Colum Lawlor ���There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter.��� P icture yourself as an insurgent who has just set an IED (improvised explosive device) in the path of a UN patrol. You have been planning this for days. Now, sitting back up the hill with a command wire in your hand you wait. The IED is well concealed and once it goes off it will cut through any armoured vehicle. But���something���s wrong! The lead vehicle has stopped 150m up the road and the driver is pointing at the roadside. Unknown to you the driver spotted a ���sign���. Off-coloured clay had encouraged the driver to stop and investigate. Whatever has happened you know your plans have been foiled and there���s nothing left but to run. However, shortly afterwards a combat tracker team is on your trail. Thankfully, this was only part of an international CounterIED (C-IED) exercise scenario in the Slieve Blooms. C-IED techniques are now being taught to all members of the Defence Forces serving at home and overseas. In addition, following a Defence Forces��� C-IED contribution to the ISAF mission in Afghanistan, we became active members of the European Defence Agency���s (EDA) C-IED project team. A document by Lt Col Ray Lane, entitled ���Guidelines for Developing a National C-IED Capability���, set the C-IED agenda for the EDA for the next five years. This document listed the core elements of C-IED and recommended that train-the-trainer courses in the areas of ground-sign awareness and combat tracking be undertaken. In 2011 the EDA contracted Pencari, specialists in C-IED, to run a ground-sign awareness course in the Ordnance School, DFTC, for member states of the EU. The course An Cosant��ir April 2013 www.dfmagazine.ie Ernest Hemingway taught students how to read ���sign���, which can be defined as any change to the natural environment made by a human, animal, or machine: a boot-print or Mars Bar wrapper, for example. This is a very simple but highly effective skill that allows personnel to spot potential IEDs and assist investigators in ���attacking the network���. Ground-sign awareness training for troops serving with ISAF is estimated to have improved its personnel���s capability to recognise an IED by up to 80%. Indeed, ground-sign awareness training across the EU has proved so successful that the EDA and Pencari were back last November, this time to bring C-IED instructors to the next level: combat tracking. ���Combat tracking has been identified as a key capability, not just in helping to identify where IEDs have been placed but also in gathering intelligence on who is placing the devices and where they come from,��� Jim Blackburn, EDA Engagement and Project Officer for C-IED, told us. ���This allows our soldiers to follow up and prevent future attacks by tracking insurgents and taking them out of the picture.��� Techniques learned on this course will enable personnel to aggressively exploit information to pursue and apprehend their quarry. Students learn in a progressive manner, starting with how to track as an individual before moving on to learn how to track as a member of a tracker team. They learn booby trap indicator recognition; how to identify, interpret and follow a track; tracker team formations; immediate action drills; reacquiring a

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