Army raising new force to check IED attacks

RAWALPINDI: The Pakistan Army is raising a new force to combat increasing use of IEDs in terrorism incidents in the country, a meeting was told on Monday. The force comprises three CIED units. The second inter-agency meeting, headed by Chief of General Staff Lieutenant General Rashad Mahmood, was held on Monday at the General Headquarters to review challenges and threats posed by the IEDs in the present environment. The representatives of Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC), Minister of Industries, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Ministry of Interior, FATA Secretariat, Pak-Arab Fertilizers, BIAFO, and Wah Nobel Group attended the meeting. CIED policy and strategy were discussed in detail with stress on the growing challenges that include increasing rate of casualties. The biggest regional challenge Pakistan faces today is to not only mitigate the effects but to also increase awareness in general public across the country so as to prevent them from becoming a part of this menace.

The need is to bring on board both civil and military efforts and pursue CIED strategy in an aggressive manner. The most significant step is to identify the grey areas and cultivate a way forward for pursuing the policy. IEDs are referred as the weapons of choice that requires a ‘whole-of-nation’ approach to be countered. While overall the menace has beeon growing, the number of IEDs has been successfully reduced in the conflict zone from 55 percent to 45 percent in the last couple of years. During the meeting, the need for national and international legislation on pertinent issues was stressed upon.

The panel noted that a number of other countries affected by IEDs have carried out legislation to bring this menace under control but Pakistan has yet not made any progress on legal plane. The issues like border control, tracking down terrorist networks and random checks in FATA also came under discussion. A regulatory mechanism was discussed in detail for effective control of move of the explosive material and Calcium Ammonium Nitrate (CAN) fertilizer from various regional and extra-regional countries. It was identified that the traders could inadvertently help the terror networks by selling electric circuits, long range remote controls, activation switches and CAN fertilizer

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