Call for strategy to counter hi-tech bombs

“The current phenomenon of low intensity conflict (LIC) have become more complex and lethal with the use of IEDs by insurgents,” opined Gen Oberoi, adding that “our actions to cope with the problem of IED’s could be classified as knee jerk reactions.”

“The major reason is the lack of a holistic national approach to this serious security problem. We have tended to handle each case piece-meal and concerted strategy is perhaps conspicuous by its absence,” said Gen Oberoi.

Informing the audience comprising of top ranking officers from military, police and paramilitary forces that the use of such devices was restricted only to North-East in the 60s and 70s, he said, the Indian Army was first confronted with sophisticated IEDs during its operations against LTTE, in Sri Lanka.

While underlining that most of the armies in recent times were engaged in “Operations other than war,” which according to him have a built-in danger of the use of IEDs, he expressed a need to have the expertise to take effective action to counter use of IEDs. “Public confidence in the security forces and the government can best be maintained by strict adherence to standard operating procedures (SOP), dealing with detection and defusing of IED,” he stressed.

Counter IED operations, according to him, were basically manpower and equipment intensive, thus it is imperative on part of security forces to keep abreast of techniques likely to be adopted by insurgents and terrorists, he stated.

Envisaging an orchestrated approach to tackle the problem, Gen Oberoi appealed for co-ordinated efforts by various governmental machineries.While urging for a proactive response to counter IED menace, Lt Gen (retd) V R Raghavan appealed for formation of National Intelligence Grid by military, para-military and police machineries.

Former Director General of Military Operations, Lt Gen (retd) V R Raghavan, who delivered the first lecture in the seminar on “Organisational changes to counter IED threat,” stated that there were conceptual errors in our judgment of the threat posed by IEDs.

Though more often IEDs are used to target psyche of the civilians, they basically focus on civil as well as military targets, he said. “IED is a terror weapon causing panicky responses, which forces the leadership in every aspect of social life to look foolish, lost and confused,” he said.Our response to IEDs, he said, are only on tactical level and they were adequate only in war-like situation.

Terming the threat posed by IEDs as a new emerging challenge, he said, it is an irregular war and can be installed anywhere in rear areas.

Pointing out that the network of military and police machinery was lagging way behind as compared to the network used by militant and terrorist outfits, Raghavan stressed upon the need of regular civil and military co-ordination, zonal police co-ordination, changes in explosive accounting and creation of specific database on IEDs.

“IED experts should go down to the level of every district police superintendent’s office and training should be imparted to NCC cadets, home guards to identify dual use explosives,” he said.

The introductory address of the seminar was delivered by Engineer-in-Chief of the Army, Lt Gen A N Sinha, while the welcoming address was delivered by Lt Gen A K Puri, Commandant of CME.