ISLAMABAD: The United States intends to spend almost $135m this year to support Pakistan in countering Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) in its troubled areas.
This money will be taken from the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Capability Fund (PCCF) to train its security forces as well as deliver forensic and detection kits, jammers, and mine resistant vehicles.
Since 2009, the State Department and the Department of Defence have provided around $113m in PCCF to help Pakistan counter IEDs, said Jonathan Carpenter, Senior Economic Adviser, Office of the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan on Thursday at the hearing arranged by the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on Near Eastern and South and Central Asian Affairs.
He said that among the obstructions to implementation were the lack of capacity, equipment and training, for which the US was ready to boost the efforts. He said that IEDs would continue to remain a top threat even after the 2014 transition period.
Carpenter told the audience at the hearing that Pakistan’s efforts to combat IEDs remain incomplete.
“The strategy that was discussed here in this committee more than two years ago has not been fully implemented, nor incorporated into legislation,” he added, but at the same time appreciated Pakistan’s stance on the issue.
Highlighting the efforts he said that the Pakistani military has conducted eight operations against suspected IED manufacturing facilities along the border this year. “There have been notable seizures of IED precursors in January, May and December of this year,” he said.
He added that his department has also worked closely with the Department of Agriculture to expand certain Agriculture Extension programmes related to soil fertility in Pakistan.
“There has, and must continue to be, a great deal of attention paid to Calcium Ammonium Nitrate, or CAN, a fertilizer produced in Pakistan and used legally for agricultural purposes in Pakistan. Afghanistan, as this committee knows, outlawed CAN in January 2010,” he said.
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