As U.S. troops prepare to leave, they rush to teach Afghans to hunt for roadside bombs

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/03/11/185264/as-us-troops-prepare-to-leave.html



Afghan National Army engineers train on how to dig out triggers on improvised explosive devices at a training center in Qalat, Afghanistan.

As U.S. troops prepare to leave, they rush to teach Afghans to hunt for roadside bombs
By Jay Price | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Monday, March 11, 2013

QALAT, Afghanistan — Improvised bombs have killed more American troops in Afghanistan than anything else since the war here began 11 years ago, and they’ll remain a favored insurgent weapon against Afghan soldiers, police and civilians after U.S. forces end their combat mission next year.

That’s why U.S. advisers across Afghanistan are rushing to train hundreds of Afghan engineers to take over the crucial but often unsung task of running routine patrols to sweep the roads of bombs before large numbers of American soldiers start leaving this fall.

“Our conflict right now with the Taliban is only IEDs (improvised explosive devices), because they can’t fight us any other way, so to protect our troops we really need to be good at defeating bombs," said Capt. Muhammed Fahim, who commands one of the front-line Afghan engineer units that will perform “route clearance,” as the job is called.

Fahim’s, unit, part of the 2nd Brigade of the Afghan 205th Corps, works out of Camp Eagle, a major Afghan army base in Zabul province in the restive southeast corner of the country. They’ve already done some independent operations on their own but need more training. He says their skills now are about 40 percent of what they will need to operate on their own, but that within a few months they’ll be ready.

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