The News Minute | June 5, 2014 | 07:02 pm IST Afghanistan has seen a rise in death toll by Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) by 14% since last year, according to a UN report. IEDs are not made in the conventional military way and are mostly used by insurgent outfits across the world. As the use of IEDs in Afghanistan is soaring by the day, so is civilian casualties, which gives rise to the need for skilled explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) personnel. In fact, the causalities are becoming so severe, that it is forcing authorities to train and employ large numbers of EOD operators. The Khama Press recently reported on a bomb disposal school in the country that trains soldiers and students to become professional EOD technicians who may later join the army. A school near Mazar-e Sharif in North Afghanistan is said to be the only school in the country that provides bomb disposal coaching. Soldiers who graduate from the school can begin by assisting their senior OED operators in their units. Once their skills are validatd by their mentors after six months, they can join as operaters in Afghan EOD units.According to Wikipedia, in “a report by the Homeland Security Market Research in the USA, the number of IEDs used in Afghanistan had increased by 400 percent since 2007 and the number of troops killed by them by 400 percent, and those wounded by 700 percent. It has been reported that IEDs are the number one cause of death among NATO troops in Afghanistan”. Read the full story here: The Afghan bomb disposal school