Roadside bombs now less sophisticated, more vexing

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
A US Army official says roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan have gotten less sophisticated and as a result harder for troops to find or avoid. And while the number of improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, found and troops injured or killed have plummeted in Iraq, they spiked recently in Afghanistan. That trend reflects the escalating combat in Afghanistan. The head of the military's counter-IED organization - Army Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz - says that earlier this year, the number of IED incidents peaked at about 200 a month in Afghanistan. He says those incidents resulted in some of the highest monthly coalition casualties due to roadside bombs in the past four years. The number of IED incidents dipped in July.