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IED attacks up in Afghanistan, down in Iraq

BAGHDAD — Iran’s commitments to stem the flow of weapons and explosives into Iraq “appear to be holding up” and have contributed to a sharp drop in roadside bombs across the country, a U.S. general said Thursday.

Army Maj. Gen. James Simmons, a deputy corps commander, said that in October, U.S. forces logged 1,560 cases in which bombs were either found and exploded.

That compared with 3,239 incidents last March, he said. The October figure was the lowest since September 2005, he added.

Meanwhile, Taliban militants have staged more roadside bomb and suicide attacks in Afghanistan this year, raising concerns that the insurgents are gaining strength and countering U.S. and NATO tactics.

Through October, the number of improvised explosive devices, including car and suicide bombs, totaled 1,932, up from 1,739 for all last year, according to military statistics. There were 782 such attacks in 2005.

Barnett Rubin, an Afghan expert at New York University, said the greater use of bombs in Afghanistan shows the Taliban is gaining momentum. The militants have recently moved back into some areas of the country, particularly those where Afghanistan’s lucrative opium crop has grown.

The insurgents have shied away from more conventional attacks. When Taliban members have tried to fight U.S. and NATO forces directly, they have been vulnerable to the coalition’s superior firepower and air attacks.

“They’ve gone back to guerrilla warfare ... because it works,” Rubin said.

The violence has translated into a higher death toll for coalition troops. At least 101 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan this year, compared with 87 in all of 2006, according to statistics compiled by the Associated Press. NATO casualties have also increased.

U.S. officers said they are making progress and the violence may be a result of their aggressive pursuit of insurgents in former Taliban sanctuaries. The number of IEDs declined in October, although fighting generally slows as winter approaches.

“We’re not ready to interpret what’s going on to say the Taliban are on the rise,” Army Col. Michael McMahon said by telephone from Afghanistan. “We think that might be true, but you can’t jump to that immediately.”

In Iraq

Last August, Iranian officials promised visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that they would stem the flow of weapons and ammunition smuggled to extremists in Iraq, according to Iraqi authorities.

Since then, U.S. military officials have reported finding fewer explosively formed penetrators, a particularly deadly form of roadside bomb they believe come from Iran.

“We believe that the commitments that the Iranians have made appear to be holding up,” Simmons said.

Iranian officials have publicly denied smuggling weapons to Shiite extremists. But U.S. authorities insist penetrator bombs are the signature weapon of Shiite militants.

Simmons said penetrator bombs were still being found in Iraq, but they appeared to have entered the country months ago.

U.S. authorities said penetrators were used in an attack Wednesday against a U.S. Stryker vehicle near an entrance to the Green Zone, killing an American soldier and wounding five others.

It was the first major attack against a U.S. military vehicle in that area in the last four or five months, Simmons said.

Simmons said the vehicle was struck by “an array” of penetrators. The attack occurred in one of the most heavily protected areas of the capital, raising questionsof how the explosives could have been planted without collusion from Iraqi police or soldiers.

The general said U.S. and Iraqi authorities were investigating the attack.

Simmons said U.S. authorities also were encouraged by an increase in tips from Iraqi citizens about weapons caches, which he interpreted as a sign the public was turning against both Shiite and Sunni extremists.

“We had found more caches by May of this year than in all of 2006,” he said.

Simmons said most of the roadside bomb attacks recently had occurred in Sunni areas north of Baghdad.

Jim Michaels of USA Today reported on Afghanistan; Lauren Frayer of The Associated Press on Iraq.

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