Senators seek crackdown on bomb ingredient

WASHINGTON, June 1 (UPI) -- U.S. senators urged the Obama administration to pressure Pakistan to restrict chemical fertilizer supplies to Afghanistan, where it is used to make bombs.

Last week Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., and 19 senators sent Secretary of State Hillary Clinton a letter requesting "urgent action" to crack down on the flow of fertilizer from Pakistan into Afghanistan, saying they wanted Pakistan to pass legislation regulating fertilizer, USA Today reported Wednesday.

The senators also said they wanted tighter border controls to eliminate shipments into Afghanistan, where the material is illegal for farming but is used for mining and construction -- and is the main ingredient in making improvised explosive devises, the top killer of U.S. troops.

"We need to be focused on this," Casey, who heads a Foreign Relations Committee panel on the region, told USA Today. "I have not seen the kind of urgency that we need to have."

The letter to Clinton said each senator "lost constituents to IEDs in Afghanistan and visit with young service members injured by these terrible weapons."

The Pentagon, the State Department and intelligence agencies have launched Operation Bolt Cutter to block the flow of ammonium nitrate to militants in Afghanistan. When mixed with fuel, ammonium nitrate makes a bomb used in the majority of improvised explosive devices.

Lt. Gen. Michael Barbero, who heads the Defense Department's Joint IED Defeat Organization, said fertilizer was "ubiquitous" in Afghanistan, USA Today said. Bolt Cutter is an effort to channel efforts of multiple agencies to "have an impact on the flow and availability" of fertilizer in Afghanistan.