On October 15, 2009, newly trained Counter-IED teams were deployed in Afghanistan for a yearlong mission: gather information from IED event sites and pass it along for further analysis. The information gathered by these teams will help identify the people making these devices and the location they are being made in.
The threat of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) has become increasingly prevalent as our troops shift in military strategy. IEDs are homemade and usually built from fertilizer, diesel fuel and scraps of metal. Insurgents, who often cannot compete with the conventional weapons used by the other countries, often hide these primitive bombs along the sides of dirt roads and other inconspicuous locations. These types of attacks are expected to increase by 25-30% in the coming year in Afghanistan where the soil is fertile and there are less paved roads, making it easier to hide unexploded ordnances. Areas littered with IEDs present two main concerns: the immediate safety of the soldier and the ability for coalition forces to move about freely on their intended course. Because human life and military strategy are the most critical issues for the services, IEDs have become a chief military problem in the Middle East. The Pentagon is now sending thousands of better equipped MRAP vehicles to counter the dangerous IED- littered terrain. Counter IED teams like the one mentioned above have become commonplace.
As the threat of these inhumane devices grows, so too must knowledge about how to defeat them. This is precisely what The Institute for Defense and Government Advancement (IDGA) seeks to teach in its 3rd Counter IED Summit, taking place January 25-27, 2010 in Washington, D.C. Because we know these threats are only increasing with time and have an immediate effect on the warfighter, the Counter IED Summit remains one of the most important conference topics in the defense industry.
The general strategy to end the threat of IEDs calls for a three pronged approach: Attack the Network-Defeat the Device-Train Soldiers. The Summit will focus on what is currently the most realistic and developed component of this method: Defeating the Device. Expert speakers from the Department of Homeland Security, US Marine Corps, DARPA, US Army Reserve, Battle Command Knowledge System and others will place a specific emphasis on breakthroughs in counter-IED technology, insurgent techniques and lessons learned, solutions for attacking the source and long term/near term needs for IED defeat.
The Summit will also feature an IED Detection and Defeat Focus Day which will hone in on the specific techniques for uncovering IEDs including Stereoscopic Visualization Capabilities, Airborn Platform Case Studies and Analysis of Forensics, among other topics.
The summit is open to Citizens of the US and NATO countries only. The event agenda can be viewed here. For more information, call IDGA at 1-800-882-8684 or visit www.CounterIEDSummit.com
Contacts:
IDGA
Luis Hernandez, 212-885-2670
luis.hernandez@idga.org
www.CounterIEDSummit.com