Taliban’s use of roadside bombs doubled in 2008

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Taliban’s use of roadside bombs doubled in 2008
By Drew Brown, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Saturday, January 17, 2009

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Taliban fighters are now planting more than twice as many bombs as they were a year ago against coalition troops and Afghan security forces in Kandahar province, military officials said Thursday.

And the number of bomb attacks that have actually struck coalition and Afghan troops has nearly tripled over last year, according to statistics provided by Canada’s Task Force Kandahar, which oversees security for the province. But, the number of attacks that resulted in soldiers being killed or wounded actually fell 3 percent during the last four months of 2008, compared to the same period the year before, officials said.

“We are more successful in dealing with them, but there are a lot more of them,” said Capt. Roy Ulrich, deputy commander of the counter-bomb squadron for Task Force Kandahar.

“The reason behind that is that the insurgents have really thrown their weight behind this strategy. They’re no longer standing and fighting. We’re suffering virtually no casualties from direct-fire incidents. It’s (bombs), and this is their chosen strategy to attack coalition and Afghan forces.”

In a briefing with reporters late Thursday, Ulrich said that more than 350 bomb “events” occurred in the province from September to December of 2008, compared to 170 incidents during the same period the previous year. Coalition forces use the term “events” to describe both bombs that actually explode and those that are discovered before detonation. Car bombs and suicide bombers were also included in the tally.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=60061