CIVIL-MILITARY FUSION CENTRE Summary of Notable Security Incidents & Trends involving Explosive Devices – September 2011 October 2011 Comprehensive Information on Complex Crises This document provides a summary of incidents and trends involving explosive devices DISCLAIMER as reported in various unclassified publications during September 2011. As this report seeks to share information of explosive events with the broader civil-military The Civil-Military Fusion Centre (CFC) is an community, the use of the term IED has been expanded to include explosive incidents in information and knowledge management general and is not restricted solely to devices that have been improvised. Additional organisation focused on improving civil- information on the topic is available at www.cimicweb.org . Hyperlinks to source military interaction, facilitating information material are highlighted in blue and underlined in the text. sharing and enhancing situational awareness through the CimicWeb portal and our weekly _______________________________________________________________ and monthly publications. CFC products are based upon and link to General Overview open-source information from a wide variety of organizations, research centres and media sources. However, the CFC does not endorse NATO’s Defence against Terrorism Centre of Excellence (DaT-CoE) and cannot necessarily guarantee the reported a total of 920 terrorist incidents across the globe during accuracy or objectivity of these sources. CFC September, resulting in 1,449 people killed and 2,290 injured. IEDs, publications are independently produced by vehicle-borne IEDs, or suicide bombers were used in 319 (34.7%) of these Knowledge Managers and do not reflect NATO policies or positions of any other attacks. IED-related attacks accounted for 493 deaths (34%) and 1,601 organisation. The CFC is part of NATO wounded (69.9%) from all terrorist incidents. Allied Command Operations. Number of Attack type Instances # Killed # Injured IED 251 282 743 VBIED CONTACT THE CFC 35 68 350 For further information, contact: Suicide attack 33 143 508 Counter-IED Knowledge Manager All other attack John Caldwell [email protected] types 601 956 689 Total terrorist attacks 920 1,449 2,290 Afghanistan Source: Adapted from NATO Defence against Terrorism Centre of Excellence – September monthly report According to a 5 September report in USA Today , insurgents in Afghanistan planted more bombs during the spring and summer of 2011 than at any time during the war. The latest Pentagon figures on IEDs show that insurgents planted 4,472 bombs from May through July, a 17% increase compared with the same three months in 2010. According to the Joint IED Defeat Organization (JIEDDO), troops were able to find 2,049 of these IEDs before they exploded. Additionally, military forces found 1,548 weapons stashes in May through July, a 145% increase over the same period in 2010. Michael O’Hanlon, a military analyst at the Brookings Institution, said the large numbers of IEDs indicate the insurgency is well-supplied and not giving up. Summary of Security Incidents involvi ng Explosive Devices – September 2011 Data released by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) on 30 September indicate between 700 – 800 IED attacks 1 took place each month nationwide during June – August 2011 (see chart below). In comparative terms, this represents an increase in IED activity over the previous summer. However, there was a 30% reduction in insurgent-initiated direct fire attacks Source: ISAF Violence Trends briefing, 30 Sept 2011 over this same period as compared to 2010. While no specific numbers were given, ISAF also reported that 55% of the IEDs planted were found and cleared . This represents an improvement over last year’s rate of 45%. According to ISAF, this improvement in finding / clearing IEDs is attributable to increased tips from local nations, improved counter-IED tactics, and increases in Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF)-led operations. In terms of notable explosive attacks, the most significant attack in Afghanistan involved the 20 September suicide bombing attack that killed Burhuanuddin Rabbani , the chief of the Afghan High Peace Council and former president of Afghanistan. Taliban spokesman Zabilhullah Mujahid identified the bomber as Mohammad Masoom. Masoom reportedly entered Rabbani’s home under the guise of peace talks and killed Rabbani and five other people by detonating an explosive device hidden in his turban. The assassination of Rabbani is the latest in a string of high-profile attacks targeting Afghan leaders. According to the Long War Journal , the assassination of Mr. Rabbani is the fourth attack carried out by the Taliban using a bomb hidden in a turban . This tactic had not been used by the Taliban until July 2011. Since then, Taliban suicide bombers have used this technique to detonate IEDs at the funeral of the slain half- brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, to kill the mayor, Bhulam Haidar Hamidi, of Kandahar City , and to explode a turban IED at an Afghan Independence Day ceremony in Helmand province. In another high-profile incident, the Long War Journal reported on 10 September that a Taliban suicide bomber drove his truck and detonated his explosives at the entry control point of Combat Outpost Sayed Abad in Wardak province. Most of the force of the explosion was absorbed by the protective barrier. Reuters reported four Afghan civilians were killed and 77 US soldiers were injured in the attack. A subsequent ISAF statement indicated less than 25 other Afghan civilians received non-life-threatening injuries. In addition to the Rabbani killing and the suicide bombing attack in Wardak province, there were a number of other suicide bomber incidents. Afghan authorities announced on 5 September that a suicide bomber attack in Kandahar City killed two security company employees, one civilian and injured 20 others. On 16 September, Press TV reported a bomb blast in a market in Shirzad district of Nangarhar province killed three people. According to government sources, the people killed in the blast were tribal militias supporting the government. In broad terms, Afghan civilians continue to be victimized by the high number of insurgent attacks. The Frontier Post, citing a United Nations mid-year report on civilian casualties in Afghanistan , said a total of 1,462 Afghan civilians were killed from terrorism-related events in the first half of 2011, a 15% increase as 1 Variances between DaT-CoE, ISAF and JIEDDO numbers on monthly IED attacks are likely due to different data reporting / accounting methods and because not all IED attacks on military forces in Afghanistan are reported in open-source publications. September 2011 Page 2 Summary of Security Incidents involvi ng Explosive Devices – September 2011 compared to the same period a year ago. In an ISAF briefing on 30 September, the command stated that over 70% of Afghan civilian casualties were the result of IED strikes. Many civilian IED casualties are from detonations by IEDs emplaced alongside main roads. The Afghan Ministry of Interior reported five civilians were killed when their vehicle hit an anti-vehicle mine in Faryab province on 5 September. Also in Faryab province, Press TV, citing Afghan authorities, reported nine civilians, including five children, were killed in a roadside bomb attack on 16 September. On 12 September, the Frontier Post reported that six persons were killed and nine others injured when their vehicle struck an IED in Barmal district, Paktika province. Security officials in Kunduz An Afghan police officer looks at the rubble near a province indicated five persons, including three children, were military base rammed by an explosive-laden truck in killed when their vehicle struck an IED on 11 September. Wardak province. Finally, on 24 September, a roadside bomb killed 16 Afghan civilians, 11 of them children, when the minibus the group was riding in hit an IED in Herat province. Afghan security forces and government officials have also been targets of IED attacks. The Taliban claimed responsibility for an attack on 6 September, when the district governor of Sheerzad district in Nangarhar province, Asil Khan Khogyani, and three of his guards were killed when their vehicle hit an IED. Iraq Although the violence level from improvised explosive devices in Iraq is measurably lower than its 2007 peak, IEDs continue to cause significant numbers of civilian casualties. According to a New York Times article published on 2 September, violence, particularly suicide attacks, is on the rise across Iraq. On 15 August, a number of coordinated attacks that included suicide bombings killed more than 90 Iraqis and wounded over 300 people. More than thirty Iraqis were killed two weeks later in a suicide attack at a mosque in Baghdad. The 2 September New York Times article, citing research from the London-based medical journal Lancet, discussed the impact of suicide bombings on Iraqi civilian casualties. According to the Lancet report, during the period 20 March 2003 to the end of 2010, suicide bombers killed 12,284 Iraqi civilians and wounded 30,644 more. The data was based on information compiled by Iraq Body Count and consisted of data extracted from news reports and hospital and morgue records. The prospect of increased sectarian violence seemed to have continued into September. Some of these attacks targeted security personnel. An article from Aswat al-Iraq stated nine persons, including five policemen, were injured in an explosion directed against a police patrol in eastern Baghdad on 12 September. A Washington Post article on 14 September reported that 16 people, including 10 off-duty police officers , were killed and 46 injured in Babil province when a car bomb exploded in a restaurant. On the same day, two Iraqi soldiers were killed and 10 others wounded when a bomb attached to a military bus exploded at an army base in Habbaniya, Anbar province. Finally, two security officers were killed and three others injured when an IED exploded in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, on 25 September.