The US has initiated a prpgraame to cut the supply chain of Pakistani Militants from using bombs inside Afghanistan by going afer the source of the essential ingredient of bomb making,fertolizer.
Inside defence has reported measures taken by the US in this direction.
How one is going to find out what is going to be used in Bomb making, short og blocking entire fertilizer supply.
More trouble for Pakistan economy and a fresh issue for US-Pakistan relationship.
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The Pentagon’s bomb squad has a new idea to thwart Afghan insurgents’ weapon of choice: by adding chemicals that’d render its main ingredient non-explosive or even make it lethal to the bomb builders themselves.
The Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, or JIEDDO, wants to tamper with the supplies of fertilizer, the primary component in the bombs that have killed 719 American soldiers in Afghanistan since 2001. One small problem: Most of the 480,000 pounds of fertilizer used in Afghanistan’s bombs issmuggled out of Pakistan, and U.S. officials have hardly convinced that country to clamp down.
“We’re not going to solve the IED problem inside Afghanistan,” a senior U.S. military official told ABC News last week. “If we don’t go after the supply, we’re playing defense.”
That’s exactly what JIEDDO’s looking to do. The agency’s new call for research, first spotted byInsideDefense.com, asks for ”additives and methods to disrupt or discourage [bomb] manufacturing from fertilizer.”
A fertilizer bomb is little more than ammonium nitrate, fuel and a simple detonator, and it can be assembled in one of two ways: For the most potent explosives, bomb makers can boil the fertilizer to separate its constituent parts and score a supply of ammonium nitrate — the chemical they’re actually after. Or, they can crush up the fertilizer’s granules and use ‘em as a quick-and-dirty bomb-building base.
JIEDDO is hoping to mess with that process. They’re interested in compounds that’d make the fertilizer turn to foam or gel when mixed with water — rendering the boiling process futile (and rather messy). Or, JIEDDO wants some kind of “grinding inhibitor” that would keep the fertilizer granules in one piece, making them entirely useless to terrorists trying to dissolve or grind them.
But one of the most promising possibilities, floated during JIEDDO chief Lt. Gen. Michael D. Barbero’s recent trip to Pakistan: “adding coated urea fertilizer granules to the bags of ammonium nitrate. The combination of urea and ammonium nitrate has a strong affinity for water and would be very difficult for insurgents to dry into an explosive powder,” the Washington Post reported. “The urea additives would not stop the insurgents from processing the fertilizer into bombs, but it would complicate their task and potentially make the blast less potent.”
The agency’s also got more malevolent ideas. They’re open to additives that would actually make bomb-building a lethal endeavor for insurgents, by “increasing the inherent risk when processing materials.”
Of course, enhancing the safety of ammonium nitrate fertilizers is already a priority — largely a futile one — in military and law enforcement circles. Last year, U.S. manufacturer Honeywell debuted a new fertilizer meant to be less explosive by combining ammonium sulfate — a fertilizer and fire retardant — with ammonium nitrate. Company execs even pitched the U.S. government on the product, but tests concluded that the fertilizer’s constituents could easily be pulled apart and the ammonium nitrate used in bombs.
http://digg.com/newsbar/topnews/pentagon_looks_to_sabotage_pakistan_s_bomb_supply
“Description of Opportunity: Buried improvised explosive devices (IED), person-borne IEDs and vehicle-borne IEDs are employed against U.S. or coalition forces anywhere in the world, but especially in Afghanistan. The manufacture and transport of homemade explosives (HME) and their precursor chemicals enables these IEDs. JIEDDO is seeking focused, short-term (i.e. 3-6 months) studies that will define the signatures and available observables for these various IEDs and HMEs, as well as aid in the development of capabilities to counter these threats. Proposals must address one of the following requirements:
A. New formulations of ammonium nitrate (AN) based fertilizer that decrease detonability and explosive output. (See Section II)
B. Additives and methods to disrupt or discourage HME manufacturing from fertilizer precursors. (See Section III)
C. Additives and methods for increased detection and identification of HMEs and precursors during transport, manufacture and IED emplacement. (See Section IV)
D. Enabling ground truth studies. (See Section V)”
http://digg.com/newsbar/topnews/pentagon_looks_to_sabotage_pakistan_s_bomb_supply
Related articles
- Pakistan urged to police IED materials (edition.cnn.com)
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