An Cosantóir

16 | Improvised explosive device (IED) strikes are being carried out against coalition assets across the length and breadth of Afghanistan on a daily basis and “IED! IED! IED!” has become a dreaded warning heard from ISAF vehicle commanders. The threat posed by IEDs, a preferred weapon of insurgents on the asymmetric battlefield, is significant and has contrib- uted to 65% - 70% of all coalition deaths. IED assaults can also involve complex scenarios combining the use of small arms and anti-armour weapons with the IED. This has led NATO/PfP to review its tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) in order to educate its troops about the dangers they face when operating in an environ- ment highly saturated with IEDs. The development of counter-IED (C-IED) training by troop-contributing nations rep- resents an effort to develop national C-IED capabilities, to defeat the threat, so that troops and military assets are prepared to withstand an IED assault. There are three core pillars: attack the network (network includes financiers, planners, bomb builders and emplacers); defeating the device; and training and education. Within these three pillars, there are six key operational activities: predict- ing IED related actions; preventing them; detecting IED materials, components and An Cosantóir August 2011 assembled devices; neutralising emplaced devices; mitigating the effects of IEDs; and exploiting IED events by recording and analyzing all relevant information. Defence Forces personnel have operated in many places where IEDs have posed a threat in the past, including Lebanon, Kosovo and presently in Afghanistan. The Defence Forces have encountered and dealt with many IEDs while serving in UNIFIL and regretfully have also lost four DF personnel killed by IEDs. Accordingly, the Defence Forces is well aware of its responsibility to train its personnel in C-IED and provide the required assets to mitigate the effects of operating in an asymmetric environment. The Ordnance Corps, under the auspices of the EDA- developed “guidelines on national C-IED capabilities” was tasked with providing such training and a steering group formed and chaired by the Director of Ordnance identified key objectives: to achieve an embedded C-IED culture in the Defence Forces; provide for a structure to enable and sustain a viable and credible all-arms C-IED capability; ensuring that C-IED is at all times an all-arms responsibil- ity. This led to the definition of a national C-IED capability that covers the areas of search (all-arms); exploitation/weapons in- telligence; future route clearance capability packages; IED-disposal, including manual neutralisation techniques (MNT); mitiga- tion; Tactics Techniques Procedures (TTPs). The Defence Forces, through the Ordnance Corps, the European Defence Agency (EDA) and ACT/NATO/PfP, has insti- gated the development of expertise in the above key areas through C-IED operator search courses (EDA); weapons intelligence training (Ordnance Corps/ACT/NATO/PfP); Exploitation is divided into a number of levels MNT training (Ordnance Corps/ EDA); and the C-IED ‘Train the Train- ers’ course (Ordnance Corps). This C-IED training has now been delivered to almost 2,000 DF per- sonnel operating with MINURCAT,

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