October 4, 2012: NATO and Afghan forces have seized an average 60 tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer a month this year. That's about twice as much as last year. The amount of ammonium nitrate seized so far this year is enough to make about 5,000 roadside bombs a month. Some of the stuff is getting through because NATO and Afghan troops have encountered nearly 1,900 of these bombs a month. That's only a slight increase over last year. Most of the bombs encountered are disabled or destroyed before they can hurt anyone. Still, about 45 percent of casualties come from these bombs. In 2009, 60 percent of NATO dead in Afghanistan were from these bombs. It has declined ever since.

The U.S. is having a difficult time preventing the Taliban and drug gangs in Afghanistan from getting explosives. That's mainly because of the widespread use of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, which has become the favorite bomb building material in the area. Anticipating this, three years ago, the Afghan government agreed to ban the use of ammonium nitrate and make available other (less effective) fertilizers. That program did not work. The problem was that the terrorists only needed about 600 kg (1,320 pounds) of ammonium nitrate a day to keep their bombing campaign going. The existing smuggling network (from Pakistan) had no problem sneaking that much in. Paying locals to build and plant these bombs cost less than a million dollars a month. Pakistan has been uncooperative when it comes to halting smuggling of explosives into Afghanistan.

The Afghan bomb makers even learned how to remove an "anti-explosive" ingredient from the fertilizer. The ammonium nitrate fertilizer produced (at only two factories) in Pakistan has calcium carbonate added to make it less explosive. But the calcium carbonate is easily removed by simple, if time consuming, procedures that the Afghan tribesmen can handle. The U.S. wants to include another additive (urea granules) to make the ammonium nitrate less explosive and more difficult to remove all additives. That really doesn't solve the problem, it just makes ammonium nitrate a little more expensive for the terrorists to use. The bomb makers have lots more to worry about than additives.

In Afghanistan, as in Iraq, the use of IEDs (Improvised Explosive devices, mainly roadside bombs) resulted in a lot of countermeasures. In Iraq the U.S. mobilized a multi-billion dollar effort to deal with IEDs and that paid off. New technology (jammers, robots), tactics (predictive analysis and such), equipment (better armor for vehicles and troops), and a lot of determination did the job. Gradually, IEDs became less dangerous. In 2006, it took about five IEDs to cause one coalition casualty (11 percent of them fatal) in Iraq. By 2008, it took nine IEDs per casualty (12 percent fatal). That trend has continued in Afghanistan, where it now takes over 70 IEDs to kill one foreign soldier. But the drug profits are so large and the ammonium nitrate IEDs so cheap to build and use, that these bombs keep showing up. The percentage of casualties from IEDs is rapidly declining as more MRAP armored vehicles and countermeasures are moved in. Currently, over 80 percent of the IEDs encountered are detected before they could harm foreign troops.

There are several differences between the IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan. These include the quality of manufacture, the skill of emplacement, and the explosives used. In Iraq there were thousands of tons of munitions and explosives scattered around the country after the 2003 invasion ended. This was the legacy of Saddam Hussein and the billions he spent on weapons during his three decades in power. The Iraqi terrorists grabbed a lot of these munitions and used them for a five year bombing campaign.

With no such abundance of leftover munitions the Taliban had to fall back on a common local explosive, ammonium nitrate. This is a powdered fertilizer that, when mixed with diesel or fuel oil, can be exploded with a detonator. While only about 40 percent of the power as the same weight of TNT, these fertilizer bombs are effective as roadside bombs. But they are bulkier and a slurry, usually mixed in a plastic jug or a barrel. Moreover, the fuel oil must be mixed thoroughly and in exactly the right proportion, otherwise the explosive effect is much less than expected.

While IEDs are even less effective in Afghanistan because they are the main cause of NATO casualties, they get a lot of media attention. In Afghanistan the enemy started off with one big disadvantage, as they didn't have the expertise or the resources of the Iraqi IED specialists. In Iraq the bombs were built and placed by one of several dozen independent gangs, each containing smaller groups of people with different skills. The Taliban IED gangs are much less skilled than those encountered in Iraq. At the same time, the equipment, techniques, and troops who neutralized the IED campaign in Iraq have been moved to Afghanistan. This is a major reason the effectiveness of Taliban IED attacks are declining so quickly.

The main reason the Taliban keep at it with the roadside bombs is that when the foreign troops leave after 2014, they will take with them the sensors and weapons that made it so difficult to use roadside bombs effectively. The Taliban expect these bombs to be much more successful against Afghan soldiers and police.