WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The US Department of Defense has launched its new Joint Improvised Threat-Defeat Agency (JIDA) to counter the use of anti-personnel mines or improvised explosive devices, the Department of Defense News reported.
“[JIDA’s task is] to stay at the forefront of improvised threats,” the News said on Monday.
JIDA is built from what had been the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) and will function as a combat support agency in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, JIDA Vice Director Army Major General Julie Bentz told the News.
Bentz explained that the Defense Department JIEDDO’s mission to include the improvised threat. “Our job was always to counter the improvised explosive device, and this new mission set asks us to look at the next [improvised explosive devices],” he noted.
“The [Defense] Department has given us an increased latitude to go after those innovative networks, because it takes a network to defeat a network,” she told the News.
Betz also said that makers of improvised explosive devices constituted a network that operated coherently and sequentially.
“[We] started noticing there were similar patterns and similar signatures that helped us understand there was a network of materials, people, tactics, techniques and procedures all coming together to build [them],” Bentz said. “It is a threat that’s not going away anytime soon, unfortunately.”
Improvised explosive devices will continue to be a threat to US and coalition forces worldwide, the general acknowledged.
