Strategy Page updates us on what's going on in Afghanistan with regard to the IED war and why Afghanistan IEDs are not the Iraqi IEDs:
June 28, 2010: The successful technique of concentrating on the leaders and technicians, to disrupt terrorist activities, is having an impact on the Taliban IED (improvised explosive device) campaign. More IEDs are duds (the exact number, and why, is kept secret so the enemy cannot fix their mistakes.) More IEDs are going off while being built. Afghanistan always had fewer bomb makers than the Islamic terrorists in Iraq. There, Saddam had trained thousands of his Sunni Iraqi loyalists to handle explosives and build bombs.
The Iraqi population is more literate than the Afghans, and thus easier to train in technical matters, like bomb building. Not surprisingly, much of the IED building in Afghanistan is being done by foreigners, especially Iraqi Sunnis who got out when their movement collapsed in 2008. It's easier to find these foreigners. Afghans have a thing about foreigners, especially Arabs (who tend to be particularly disdainful of these "Afghan hillbillies.") The Taliban leadership is almost all Afghan, and those running the IED operation (which involves thousands of people) have to communicate and move around to instruct, discipline and encourage the troops. This makes them easier to track and catch.
This tactic of going after the bomb builder techs and their leaders was pioneered a decade ago, when the Palestinians began their latest terror campaign against Israel. Within a few years, the Israelis had perfected their techniques, and crippled the Palestinian terror efforts. The U.S. adopted these tactics in Iraq shortly thereafter, and it played a large role in reducing the terrorist violence 90 percent by 2008. Now the tactic is arriving in Afghanistan, and having the same impact it did in Israel and Iraq.
There's more on military tactics in Afghanistan at the link.
RLC
