Bomb Hunters: In Afghanistan With Britain's Elite Bomb Disposal Unit Page 8
Chapter 3: Bomb Makers
‘A year ago, the idea that an ATO might dispose of 100 bombs on a tour in Helmand was unthinkable, but soon it will be the average. The pressures on these guys are huge, the room for error zero.’
Major Tim Gould, Officer Commanding Joint Force EOD Group
I’m sitting on a makeshift wooden bench within the quiet enclave of Camp Bastion which is home to the Joint Force EOD Group. The sun is shining brightly in a cloudless sky and the temperature is a comfortable, almost perfect 26°. I’m drinking tea with Major Tim Gould, who leads the JFEOD Group. He is a highly qualified and deeply respected ATO who won the Queen’s Gallantry Medal in Iraq after recovering the body of a fellow bomb-disposal officer killed while transporting Iraqi bombs. He is lean and tanned but not as dark as the foot soldiers who spend their days defusing bombs across Helmand. Tim’s days of bomb disposal are effectively behind him. These days he is the ‘controller’, the man charged with sending troops into what the soldiers somewhat dramatically call the ‘heart of darkness’ – those areas of Helmand that are now essentially IED minefields.
Major Gould is tired, both physically and mentally. He doesn’t tell me this but I can see it in his eyes and the way he talks, in the lengthy pauses during our conversation and the way he stares into the distance. It’s not the back-to-back eighteen-hour days for the past six months which have left him exhausted, but the deaths of six of his men and the horrific, often life-changing injuries suffered by many of those under his command. He is tired of Helmand and, like many commanders, tired of writing letters home to the families of the dead, trying, often without success, to explain why the sacrifice of a son, husband or brother was not in vain.
As the bomb hunters’ commander, Gould is directly responsible for the men and women who search for and dispose of IEDs. Right now his is one of the toughest jobs in Helmand, an area the size of Wales where around 8,000 British troops are deployed. For reasons of operational security I have been asked not to disclose how many Royal Engineer High Risk search teams and CIED teams are based in Helmand – but as far as Gould is concerned it is not enough.
I’ve met officers like Tim before – men who carry the burden of sending young soldiers to their death in the cause of duty. It is a burden they will carry for ever, always wondering whether they could have done more to save the life of a comrade or prevent another from being injured. It is another tragic, hidden cost of war.
The wounds left by the deaths of those under his command are still raw. Major Gould served during one of the bloodiest periods in EOD history. Before the war in Afghanistan, twenty-four British ATOs had been killed in action, twenty-three in Northern Ireland and one in Iraq. Since 2008 five ATOs have been killed in Helmand, and many more have been injured. The attrition rates in Helmand now mirror those of the early years of the Troubles.
Tim Gould’s ATOs speak of him in glowing terms. They say that he worked harder than any member of the Task Force, including those on operations, but that he also took the deaths of his soldiers badly. ‘Major Gould is a great boss,’ says one of the ATOs in the JFEOD Group. ‘At first he does seem slightly reserved but underneath he is a genuinely warm and nice bloke. When you came in off an operation he would sit and chat for ages about what you had been up to, not because it was his job but so that an operator could unload his troubles. I always knew that I could be as robust as possible with commanders on the ground because he would always give me his full backing. We all knew he was tired because of the hours he worked. It was every day from 0730 to 2200 – more than the operators on the ground. We all knew that he took the deaths of the lads very badly. He was an ATO, so he knew the dangers, he knew that when he sent a bloke out on a job he might not come back.’
Major Gould’s modesty prevents him from telling me how he won his Queen’s Gallantry Medal but one of his colleagues says that he won it during the opening days of the Iraq War, while trying to save Staff Sergeant Chris Muir, who had been mortally wounded while attempting to dispose of a cluster bomb composed of more than eighty lethal bomblets. While they were taking the device to a safe area, one of the small bombs had exploded, leaving the staff sergeant with devastating injuries. Gould cleared a safe route to his injured colleague, only to discover more bomblets hidden beneath his body. Despite the dangers, and the fact that the Staff Sergeant was beyond help, Gould methodically defused one bomblet after another until his comrade could be rescued. Staff Sergeant Muir later died of his injuries.
‘IEDs are basic but deadly,’ Major Gould states matter-of-factly. ‘Take for example the pressure-plate IED. What is this thing which has killed hundreds of British troops? Let’s break it down.’ He speaks quickly and fluently. I can tell it’s a conversation he has had many time before, probably with generals and politicians wondering why the Taliban are able to make IEDs in such vast numbers and with apparent ease.
‘A bomb is a switch with a power source connected to a detonator which is placed inside a main charge of explosive,’ the major continues. ‘An IED consists of anything which will keep two metal contacts apart – we have seen strips of wood and clothes pegs – which are used to form a switch. The contacts can then be moved together by applying pressure or releasing pressure. So the most simple devices we have found consist of two pieces of wood, maybe 1 in. wide and about 1 ft long, with an axle blade nailed to each piece. The pieces of wood are kept apart by a piece of sponge or another piece of wood, anything which will allow the two axle blades to come together when pressure is applied – the same theory works if the device is pressure-release. Wires are then connected to the two blades and to the detonator, which can often be the most complicated part to make. It’s not commercial, something improvised. The detonator is then placed inside some home-made explosive, often a mixture of ammonium nitrate – which is a common fertilizer widely available in Helmand – aluminium filings and sugar, and this is known as ANAL and this is the main charge. The explosive needs to be put in a container, something which will keep it dry, and commonly in Helmand the Taliban are using palm-oil containers. At this stage the explosive is very stable. You could throw it against a wall and nothing would happen. You could burn it and it would burn furiously but it wouldn’t explode – for that you need a detonator. The detonator is then inserted into the container, usually by cutting a hole in the side, and then resealed. The device now needs to have a power source – so what’s available? Batteries. Eight 1.5-volt batteries are often enough.’
Major Gould speaks with a hint of anger or at least irritation in his voice as he continues, ‘So you now have a simple circuit, which an 11-year-old boy could easily knock together, consisting of a power source connected to a switch – the pressure plate – which is connected to a detonator. And that is your bomb. Flick the switch by bringing the two metal contacts together, which allows an electric current from the batteries to flow to the detonator, causing a small explosion inside the main charge, which explodes with enormous force. The power can be increased by adding more ANAL, conventional explosives or conventional munitions such as artillery shells, mortar bombs, hand grenades or rocket warheads.’
The major has described the construction of an IED with a ‘high metal’ content. These were the first generation of devices and are relatively easy to find with a Vallon. But the Taliban are an adaptable and inventive foe. War and fighting are part of their culture and heritage. Their fathers and grandfathers fought the Soviets and then each other in a civil war, and now they are fighting NATO. Just like the IRA, who, let’s face it, were also insurgents, the Taliban will always try to build on success rather than failure. So it was only a matter of time before they began to build IEDs with ‘low metal’ content. Instead of using saw blades or other strips of metal as the switch, the Taliban have begun to use the carbon rods from inside batteries. And they work really well.
In addition to victim-detonated devices, such as pressure-plate and pressure-release IEDs, there are also those which can be triggered by rem
ote control. Some devices can also be turned on and off remotely. In some parts of Helmand, for example in Musa Qala, pressure-plate bombs are armed remotely just before a British patrol arrives in the locality. If the patrol takes another route, the device can be switched off and the track is then free for local people to use. By adopting this tactic the Taliban can reduce their collateral damage, for they need to keep the local population on their side in the areas they control. The threat from these devices, which is potentially considerable, is lessened by the use of electronic counter-measures, or ECM. These were developed during the 1980s and 1990s, during the bloody days of the Troubles, and their use still remains an extremely sensitive subject.
The next group of devices are the command IEDs, which function ‘on command’ rather than being victim-operated like a pressure-plate device. Again the main charge is often, though not exclusively, home-made explosive. Command IEDs break down into two categories. The first is the ‘command pull’, where the device is triggered by an insurgent pulling on, for example, a piece of string or wire. This can be as simple as dislodging any non-conductive material that is keeping two electric terminals apart. When the terminals touch, the bomb functions. The other category is the ‘command wire’ device, which is detonated by an insurgent connecting the bomb to a power supply, such as a car battery, when a potential target is in range. In Helmand, command wires up to 200 metres long have been found. With the power source, which often contains a high proportion of metal, so far away from the explosive, these are very difficult to discover with a metal detector.
IEDs can also be detonated by a trip wire. One example of this kind of device is the Russian-made POMZ, which is effectively an anti-personnel fragmentation grenade mounted on a wooden stick. When a soldier approaches the device, an insurgent gives the wire a gentle tug to pull the pin out of the grenade, causing it to detonate in less than a second. These devices can also be detonated by the victim walking into a trip wire.
‘IED production has gone beyond being a cottage industry,’ Major Gould continued. ‘They are now being knocked out on an industrial scale at the rate of one every fifteen to twenty minutes. This is something which is very difficult to target because, when you see the nature of the devices, they are so simple but very effective. I wouldn’t say the bombs are bodged – but they’re not far from it. But that doesn’t matter. They are still very effective and they do the job. They don’t have to be state-of-the-art – quality control is minimal – but the beauty of these things is that they work. You can leave a pressure-plate IED buried in the ground for a month, maybe more, and it can still kill.
‘During the Northern Ireland period the IRA were incredibly sophisticated – the IRA wouldn’t put a device on the street unless they were 100 per cent sure that it would function. In Helmand there is absolutely no quality control. The bombs are knocked together with any old rubbish, which can make the device very unstable. You could sneeze and it would function, you could be working on it and the ground around you could collapse and it could function, or it could function just because you are moving the earth close to it. The IRA built devices with “ready-to-arm” switches but we haven’t seen anything like that here. The bombs might not be much to look at but they are very effective and they are killing and injuring lots of troops and civilians.’
Intelligence has emerged suggesting that Iran has been training Taliban snipers and bomb makers, a worrying development with similarities to the situation facing the allies in Iraq. Iranian intervention in Iraq was responsible for killing and injuring hundreds of British troops.
During 2006 and 2007, IEDD teams deployed to Afghanistan for four months. Back then there were only two British bomb-disposal teams in Helmand. Iraq was still the main focus for IED disposal. But that changed in 2008, when Helmand was redefined as a high-threat environment and the tour of duty was extended to six months. In the space of two years the number of Taliban attacks had surged by more than 300 per cent. Soldiers were being killed and injured almost daily and the IEDs were also being used to target ATOs. When news that the tour was to be longer was announced, none of the ATOs being sent to Helmand complained; they simply did as they were told.
By January 2010 serious concerns were beginning to be voiced over the pressure facing ATOs and other members of the bomb-hunting teams. Everyone working in EOD was aware that all three of the ATOs who had so far died in Helmand had been almost two-thirds of the way through their tours. It was the same story for an ATO who was seriously injured. The exception was Captain Dan Read, who deployed to Helmand on Operation Herrick 11 and was injured in October 2009 and was sent back to the UK as part of his recovery. He returned to Helmand in early January 2010 and was subsequently killed in action in Musa Qala on 11 January. The counter-IED world had not seen so many deaths in such a short space of time since the early years of the Troubles, in the 1970s. The question being asked was, ‘Were they exhausted or had they become ambivalent to risk?’
‘In the days when Northern Ireland was a big problem, an ATO would be lucky if the number of devices he defused on a tour reached double figures,’ Major Gould explained. ‘Now guys are doing fifty to 100 devices. Badger, who you’ve met, disposed of 139 in six months. A year ago, the idea that an ATO might dispose of 100 bombs on a tour in Helmand was unthinkable, but soon it will be the average. The pressures on these guys are huge, the room for error zero.
‘We had not lost an operator since 1989, but now we are back to the attrition rate of the early 1970s. It is a demanding and gruelling job and I think we will see, in the years to come, cases of post-traumatic stress disorder beginning to emerge. The stress is unquantifiable. It is one of my major worries. We don’t know what sort of toll this war is having on bomb-disposal teams. We won’t know that for a long while.
‘The Counter IED Task Force was established to deal with the IED threat in Helmand. In 2006 there were just two ATOs and two search teams; that number has increased but we still need more. At the moment we are very pressed and we can’t deliver enough effect.’
By ‘effect’ Major Gould meant the ability to defuse bombs at the right time in all the areas necessary, both to allow British troops to move about safely and to give the local people some freedom of movement.
‘We desperately need more ATOs and search teams,’ he went on. ‘These are the people who allow soldiers to interface with the locals, which is all part of counter-insurgency. CIED is about a lot more than just getting rid of bombs – it is about opening up the country to allow ISAF and the Afghan security forces to secure the local population.
‘My teams could clear thousands of IEDs every month and it wouldn’t have any effect at all – the key is to make sure you clear the right ones. We still do not have enough IED operators here, and that’s a source of frustration. In theory each company should have a team, but we simply don’t have the numbers. It takes up to seven years to recruit and train an Ammunition Technician – that’s as long as it takes to train a doctor.’
The woeful shortage of ATOs was caused in large part by a catastrophic decision to halt recruitment into the Royal Logistic Corps at both officer and soldier levels. The net effect was that bomb-hunting units were left with a 40 per cent reduction in manpower at a time when British troops were on operations and facing a significant IED threat in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Bomb-disposal experts are a scarce resource; there are only a finite number in the Army. As well as taking part in operations in Helmand, bomb-disposal teams are also based on the British mainland and in Northern Ireland, ready to deal with an IED 24/7. A select group of bomb hunters, known as Team Alpha, also work with the SAS. One of their roles is to defuse IEDs attached to hostages and suicide bombers. They specialize in ‘Category A’, or manual, neutralizations, which are undertaken only when no other option is available, for example when a bomb is strapped to a hostage or to prevent a mass-casualty event. ATOs who choose to work with Team Alpha must be prepared and ready to tackle any device and do what
ever is necessary to save life – even if it requires self-sacrifice.
Before deploying to Helmand, ATOs must successfully complete a gruelling eight-week High Threat course, which just 20 per cent pass at the first time of taking. While on the course ATOs learn how to dispose of all types of IEDs they can expect to meet in theatre and also undergo rigorous psychological testing to assess their suitability to operate in an environment where they will often be the target. There have been several qualified ATOs who have failed to make the grade on the course because they lacked the mental fortitude to deal with the unrelenting demands of a high-threat environment.
As well as the bomb hunters and RESTs, the CIED Task Force works alongside a number of units, including the Joint Force Engineer Group, to clear IEDs. The Python is a rocket-propelled mine-clearance system which is mounted on a Royal Engineer Trojan armoured vehicle and has been used in Helmand to blast a route through IED belts along which troops or convoys of armoured vehicles can safely pass. An alternative route-clearance system is the Talisman programme, which consists of a fleet of vehicles designed to clear routes for combat logistic patrols. Each Talisman suite is composed of a Mastiff 2 protected vehicle in which the IEDD team travel; a Buffalo mine-protected vehicle with a rummaging arm, which can be used to locate IEDs; a JCB high-mobility engineer excavator, used to fill in ditches or potholes; a T-Hawk micro air vehicle, which is a man-portable drone that flies ahead of the convoys and observes suspicious vehicles; and a Talon, a tracked remote-controlled vehicle which is used to disrupt or disarm IEDs. The Python and Talisman are perfect for clearing routes through banks of IEDs for combat logistic patrols or for major advances into enemy territory. But they have little use for the majority of bomb-disposal work in Helmand, which takes place on public roads and in small villages and hamlets, where most British casualties occur.