UAVs help provide security to runoff election in Afghanistan

Washington Times:

U.S.-led forces are intensifying operations against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan to counter an anticipated increase in attacks before a presidential runoff election next month.

At Kandahar airfield, U.S. and British pilots Wednesday monitored live streaming video from an unmanned aerial vehicle flying in a clear morning sky over southern Afghanistan, where improvised explosive device (IED) attacks have become increasingly deadly and frequent.

"This is a new counter-IED operation against a very brazen Taliban insurgency," said U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. James Morgan Curry, commander of the 62nd Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron, whose main task is to launch the drones and recover them after missions.

"We're about to have a runoff election and we are going to be providing information to the intelligence community," he said. "We are at maximum capacity right now, but we're going to go above and beyond to ensure we're doing all we can to protect the civilian population as well as our units."

...

Col. Curry said that drones are gathering information on known extremists in Kandahar to prevent attacks during the voting. The unmanned craft can also home in and kill with Hellfire guided missiles.

U.S. military officials said the drones are monitoring areas that have experienced numerous IED attacks. A classified map, marked with black, yellow and red dots, shows more than 50 places in southern Kandahar where the Taliban has already targeted coalition forces.

Col. Curry said the information gathered by the drones is shared with the intelligence community to develop a more comprehensive analysis of Taliban operations.

...

A U.S. defense official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was discussing sensitive intelligence, said IEDs in the Kandahar region "have become extremely sophisticated and deadly." He added that there was evidence that the Afghans planting the devices had training and other assistance from members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, who have been linked to similar support for Iraqi insurgents.

...

The drones with the help of computer data bases can track the enemy's use of IEDs and predict where they will try again. By keeping a constant observation we will be able to destroy the IEDs as they are being planted. We were very successful at this in Iraq and when we get all the resources in place, we will also destroy these operations in Afghanistan.