IEDs in Afghanistan: The Deadliest Weapon

Last month was the most lethal yet for American forces in Afghanistan.

And most of the Americans were killed by the deadliest weapon in the enemy's arsenal: the roadside bomb, or IED, an improvised explosive device.

IEDs killed more than 40 American and coalition forces in October alone, up from five two years ago.

In response, the U.S. military has gone on the offensive.

Search and destroy missions are carried out across Afghanistan by a small army of elite units called "Task Force Paladin."

Only volunteers are allowed to serve on Paladin teams because the mission is so dangerous.

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It was after midnight last month at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. President Barack Obama went to the base as America's war dead came home.

Eight of the flag-covered caskets contained the remains of Americans who had been killed by roadside bombs in Afghanistan.

"It's been a terrorist tool of choice for many, many years," Col. Jeffrey Jarkowsky told 60 Minutes correspondent Byron Pitts.

Col. Jarkowsky was in charge of Task Force Paladin when we visited Afghanistan.

"'Look at us. We can kill, we can maim, we can destroy when we want to, and the Americans can't stop us,'" Pitts remarked.

"That's their intent, yes," Jarkowsky agreed.

The colonel says his squads are having more success finding those bombs. We spent two days on the road with Army Captain Dave Foster and his Paladin team. They were on patrol for less than an hour when they discovered their first bomb. It would not be the last.

"The IED that we found had a 107 millimeter rocket connected to a command wire. As the team was doing dismount and ops they found the command wire. A 107 millimeter rocket has approximately about eight pounds of explosives in the warhead," Capt. Foster explained.

They spotted it near a family's home. Staff Sergeant Max Cabrera found and then disconnected the command wire - or detonation wire - disabling the bomb.

Six Paladin soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since 2008 on similar missions.

Despite the risk to himself, Staff Sgt. Cabrera picked up the bomb, and to avoid civilian casualties, he carried it behind an abandoned building and blew it up.

"You get scared, but when you got so many things going through your mind, you just don't even know what to concentrate on sometimes," Cabrera told Pitts.

Asked if he's scared, he said, "Yes sir. Everybody is. Lets you know you're still alive."

Cabrera is 26. His home is on the island of Saipan, in the West Pacific.

Asked what it takes to do the job of disabling bombs, Capt. Foster told Pitts, "A belief that you are making a difference and a little bit of craziness."

"A little bit of crazy goes a long way in Afghanistan," Pitts remarked.

"Yes sir. It does," Foster said.

In World War II and Korea, artillery and shrapnel killed more American troops than any other weapon. In Vietnam it was small arms fire.

In Afghanistan, it's the roadside bomb that has caused more than 75 percent of the deaths of American and coalition forces.

60 Minutes traveled to eastern Afghanistan, Khost Province, which is walking distance from the Pakistan border, where many of the bomb makers are trained.

On this mission, the Paladin squad was working with a Michigan National Guard unit to clear bombs from roads in the area. It's called "Route Clearance Patrol."

There are 35 of them in Afghanistan; the Pentagon plans on sending 13 more this winter.

Specialist Christopher Parsons has been a guardsman for three years. "I love the pressure and it puts a lot of pressure on me to make sure I do my job correctly," he told Pitts.

Asked what skill it takes to do his job, Spc. Parsons said, "Honestly, I'm from Michigan, so I love to hunt and that helps a lot."

"So whether it's hunting deer in Michigan or hunting IEDs in Afghanistan, same skill set?" Pitts asked.

"Roger," Parsons replied.

One of his commanding officers told us deer hunters like Parsons make the best bomb hunters. With his sharp vision, he was able to find one with a trigger smaller than his index finger: it was a clothes pin.

Moving at about 10 to 15 kilometers an hour, Parsons spotted the pin from 30 meters away.

His first thought: "I thought…trip wire right away. And so I just started looking more. And I saw the wire."

Thanks to Guardsman Parsons, the bomb was destroyed.

The devices can be triggered by clothespins, but the blasts are often massive. That's why Paladin teams travel in specialized, highly armored vehicles. Each one costs nearly $1 million.

One vehicle type, called a "Buffalo," has a large, claw-like arm that can dig for bombs in the road. Another can snag trip wires lying across the road.

Thomas LaFave, captain of the National Guard unit, says the vehicles are targets every time they leave base. "They know what my purpose is when I roll out with that Buffalo. And they've watched it enough to know exactly what that vehicle does," he told Pitts.

"You leave the gates and people are watching you, you think?" Pitts asked.

"Roger," LaFave said. "Yep, every time we leave."

"Every day, they're gonna be out there trying to kill you," Pitts remarked.

"Every time we leave," the captain agreed.

Their job was to clear a road so the base commander could drive safely to a meeting with a local official 12 miles away.

Outside a village the Buffalo - the most highly-armored vehicle in the convoy and the biggest target - stopped to dig for a bomb because the squad was attacked there just the week before.

There was no bomb and the convoy moved on. But six minutes later, the Buffalo was rocked by an explosion,

The vehicle filled with smoke as two powerful bombs buried in the dirt road exploded, engulfing the vehicle in a huge cloud of dust. Despite their training and experience, the squad never saw it coming.

Two bombers got away. The Buffalo, which collapsed in a huge hole, lost its wheel and driveshaft. But all three soldiers inside survived.

One of them, Sergeant Daniel Deroche, was relieved but frustrated. "Same goddamn spot it happens every time we roll up here," he told Pitts. "This is my second hit. Cat got the mouse this time I guess you could say."

Sgt. Cabrera found the detonation wires buried in the road. It's easy to bury them there because there are so many dirt roads in Afghanistan.

Cabrera and his partner Specialist Joshua Gross told us the first bomb hit its target, but the second one - 30 yards away - missed.

"In this instance, did the triggerman make a mistake or were you guys just lucky?" Pitts asked.

"Triggerman made a mistake," Cabrera said.

"And we were lucky. We were lucky he made a mistake," Spc. Gross added.

"Lucky," because it's usually the second bomb that causes the most casualties. After the first explosion, men like Sgt. Cabrera go to investigate. And that's when the insurgents often set off the second bomb.

"Something with your name on it?" Pitts asked. "Meant to maim or kill you?"

"Yes sir," Cabrera replied.

Roadside bombs are also meant to prove to Afghans the United States, with its superior military, still can't protect its own troops or them.

Cabrera estimated that it costs maybe $10 to make an IED in Afghanistan.

"One soldier we talked to had been hit by IEDs on the same road, within a half kilometer, three times," Pitts told Col. Jeffrey Jarkowsky.

"Right, well, the enemy is relentless in the way he employs these," the colonel said. "And so you can't stop. Ours is a fight of constant, consistent pressure where we have to be relentless just as that enemy is. This is not a fast fight."

It's warfare at a snail's pace: we stopped so often, we averaged just two miles an hour.

Along the way, Capt. Foster thought there might be a bomb hidden in a field. The local farmers seemed friendly enough, but a bomb wire was found on their land.

One of the vehicles dug for explosives but couldn't find any. With darkness falling, it was up to Sgt. Cabrera - again. So he put on his 80-pound bomb suit and took what soldiers call "the long lonely walk."

The road appeared safe. But to be sure, he set off two explosive charges.

It turns out there wasn't a bomb connected to the command wire.

The convoy presumed the road was clear enough to move on when another bomb exploded behind it.

"Looks like we got out of there in time," Foster commented.

Just before midnight, we made it safely to an old farmhouse-turned-military outpost. While his men slept, we talked with Captain Foster about a difficult 17-hour day.

Asked if he accomplished his mission today, Foster said, "Yes sir."

"So after mortars, IEDs, this was a good day?" Pitts asked.

"Yes sir. Everybody came home safe," Foster explained.

"You seem a bit somber. Or just exhausted?" Pitts asked.

"No it's…at the end of the day knowing that all my soldiers are safe, that's when I sit down in a quiet time and thank God for watching over them," Foster said.

Hours later, near the end of their mission, Capt. Foster's men were attacked again.

Around a bend in the road, smoke rising in the distance meant that a massive bomb had exploded under the lead vehicle, just two miles from base. The vehicle appeared to have been totaled.

All three men on board were injured. Within minutes, soldiers climbed ridges on both sides of the road, looking for the bomber.

"They went looking for the triggerman," Foster said.

"But your expectation is that someone had to be eyeballing this convoy in order for it to go off?" Pitts asked.

"Yes sir, that's the initial expectation," Foster said.

Several men and a child in a car nearby were questioned and released. In our two days on the road, the bomb squad encountered five bombs.

Three soldiers were injured, two others shaken up. One U.S. vehicle was damaged, another wrecked.

Not a single bomber was captured or killed.

"You've been briefed on the mission we went on. Was it successful?" Pitts asked Col. Jarkowsky.

"Overall, yes. It was successful in that that force was able to find IEDs," he replied.

"Did they find the IEDs? Or did the IEDs find them?" Pitts asked.

"Some of both," Jarkowsky said. "Some were found and rendered safe. I think we destroyed them and at least one of them. Others we found the hard way."

"For the American people who see those scenes of the explosions, vehicles being damaged, who say, America just got its butt kicked that day, you say what?" Pitts asked.

"Not at all. A vehicle getting blown up, doing what it was designed to do to absorb that blast, is not us getting our butts kicked. It's us removing that threat," Jarkowsky said.

"Do you ever think this is a fight you can't win?" Pitts asked Spc. Joshua Gross. "They go out, they place a bomb, you remove it, the next day they put out another bomb."

"Right. I mean, I try not to think about it too much 'cause it doesn't really help anybody. You know?" he replied.

"What do you think? Is this a fight you can win?" Pitts asked Sgt. Cabrera.

"Beats me," he replied.

"I guess, I guess winning to me is going home, really, after our deployment's done," Gross added.

"Going home alive," Cabrera said.

"That's how you measure success in Afghanistan?" Pitts asked.

"Yes sir," he replied.

Produced by Tom Anderson