The Countering Explosive Threat and Demining Conference will be taking place from September 24 - 25, 2024 at Copthorne Tara Hotel, London, Kensington, and will bring together key stakeholders in Explosive Ordnance Disposal and Mine Clearance from across the total EOD community, including NGO’s, government, private sector and the military.

The conference will be centred on the operations required for demining and EOD, including the need for advanced technologies to navigate the complexity of munitionsdetection and disposal. In our interactions with end-users, we learned that their primary objective is to obtain effective and unique technology to combat both large-scale demining and domestic bomb threats.

2024 Speakers Include:

• Colonel Lajos Zsolt Szilagyi, Chief of Staff, NATO Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Centre of Excellence
• Colonel Brian Howard, Commander of 29 EOD & Search Group, British Army
• Master Seargeant Chris Maukeng, EOD Specialist, Norwegian Joint School Ammunitions and EOD 
• Michael Nevard, Head of Research and Development, The Halo Trust
• Sean Haglund, Associate Director Office of Bomb Disposal, CISA
• Armen Harutyunyan, Head of Standards & Operations, GICHD

Download the agenda to find out more about our topics and speaker faculty >>

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This report analyses the extent of landmine contamination for a number of nations where data is available, and also looks at the number of deaths and injury’s related to IEDs. With exclusive insights from Colonel (ret.) Rob Hyde Bales, Consulting Editor, Counter-IED Report, this piece also includes three case studies for countries where landmines are a prevalent issue: Afghanistan, Colombia and Ukraine. 

Three decades of armed conflict has left Afghanistan heavily contaminated with mines and other explosive remnants of war (ERW).Although much progress has been made towards the clearance of legacy mines, armed opposition groups have been moving away from conventional mines and other explosive ordnance, and are increasingly using homemade explosives and improvised devices.

This article outlines HALO's work in Afghanistan related to mine disposal, other explosive ordnance, explosive source material and weapons to protect the civilian population.

The number of casualties and injuries resulting from IEDs is currently decreasing in countries under the U.S Central Command's authority, but steadily increasing in Afghanistan. Cheap, unpredictable, and extremely lethal, IEDs quickly became the weapon of choice for insurgents during the Afghan war.

Earlier this year, we put together this report on the three lessons we can learn from the ongoing IED threat in Afghanistan.

Landmines and unexploded ordnance have taken a heavy human toll in eastern Ukraine, causing at least 1,929 casualties since the start of the conflict.

This exclusive content piece provided by The HALO Trust explores the problem of landmines in the Ukraine and gives an overview of the latest survey and clearance activities that HALO are carrying out in the nation.  

Colombia continues to be one of the most mine-affected countries in the world and has over 11,500 registered landmine victims. This exclusive content piece provided by The HALO Trust explores the problem of landmines in Colombia and gives an overview of the latest survey and clearance activities that HALO are carrying out in the nation.