News

Taliban-planted roadside bombs, which have killed 10 Canadian soldiers in the past five weeks, have grown far more sophisticated this winter, Canadian military officials say.

Trooper Brian Good, killed Wednesday morning north of Kandahar city, became Canada's first war casualty of 2009 from an improvised explosive device.

Scores more Afghan police, army and civilians have been killed and maimed by the bombs, which insurgents plant on busy routes, as well as in ditches and culverts lining the roads.

Winter is traditionally a period when fighting dies down in the Afghan countryside as fighters leave the country for Pakistan. Not so this year.

The deputy commander of coalition forces in Kandahar, Colonel Jamie Cade, Wednesday night called the string of IED attacks a “plague.” And at a grim news conference at Kandahar Air Field Base, Col. Cade conceded that the IED blasts are becoming “more and more complex.”

Indeed, like a persistent virus, the spate of fatal IED attacks has highlighted the shortcomings of Canadian attempts to outmanoeuvre the bomb makers.

Each time Canadians switch tactics, the insurgents catch on and change their methods, too. For example, when Canadian patrols began travelling off-road to avoid buried explosives, the insurgents followed their tire tracks into the desert.

Insurgents have also begun planting the bombs on asphalt roads, then paving over the bomb, making them very difficult to detect for foreign forces who travel these roads in armoured vehicles.

And last month, one fatal blast that killed two Canadians came just hours after the military claimed a victory with the killing of an insurgent who was suspected of masterminding bomb attacks.

When asked Wednesday night why Canadian troops were getting hit hard by IEDs, Col. Cade replied: “Sometimes it's bad luck. Sometimes certain cells enter the area and start to operate in a certain region, and through a number of different methods we eventually dismantle the cell.”

Still, Canadian military officials argue that they're making headway against the bombers, and they've destroyed more bombs than ever reach the Canadian targets.

They've used drones to destroy some cells, have shared information with other NATO allies and have seized bomb-making materials from Taliban hideaways over the past months.

But the lethal bombs have caused the military to scrutinize its counter-IED methods.

“After each strike, we go through a thorough analysis of what happened. … Were our procedures properly employed, are our procedures correct? Is there new technology? Is our technology good enough?

“And if we find we have a weakness, we correct that weakness. If we find that sometimes it's just bad luck, that's the fortune of life.”

Many military analysts have predicted that 2009 will be a bloody year for foreign troops in Afghanistan as the insurgents attempt to fend off a surge in U.S. troops, which are expected to begin arriving within the month.

Lieutenant-General Michel Gauthier, responsible for all overseas forces and widely viewed as the most experienced military official on Afghan issues, said last month that he believes 2009 will mark a peak in the conflict, after which the violence will begin to wane.

When asked last December about the spike in IED attacks, Canada's top commander in Kandahar, said the Taliban usually turn to IEDs in winter when cold weather makes it hard for the insurgents to rally large groups of fighters.

“IEDs are the weapon of choice at this particular time of year because they can't take us on face to face,” Brigadier-General Denis Thompson said.

The number of insurgent attacks has climbed sharply since the arrival of Canada's battle group in the volatile province in early 2006.