Since the Iraq insurgency began, the U.S. Air Force has been looking for ways to use its planes to fight roadside bombs. Electronic warriors like the EC-130H Compass Call jam frequencies used to set off explosives. Drones patrol highways, looking for new, suspicious mounds along the road. Sometimes they even take out the bomb-planters.



Inside Defense reveals another Air Force tactic: Using ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) aircraft "to help coalition units round up insurgent cells believed to manufacture lethal improvised explosive devices."