Suited up to take over from Diggers Ready to roll: Sergeant Major Mohammad Naim prepares for work. For a man taking over the most dangerous job in Afghanistan, Sergeant Major Mohammad Naim wears a broad grin as he puts on his bomb suit. Proud as punch in the astronaut-like gear made famous by the film The Hurt Locker, Sergeant Major Naim poses like a bodybuilder. It's mid-morning on a dusty slope within Tarin Kowt multinational base, Oruzgan, where Australian Sapper Luke Ryder is training members of the Afghan National Army to handle improvised explosive devices ahead of the planned withdrawal of the Australian forces by the end of the year. Sapper Ryder, at just 23, holds one of the more unusual records in the Army, finding 11 hidden insurgents' bombs in one nine-month deployment. The stakes in this handover of responsibility are great; IEDs are still the weapon of choice for the insurgency in Afghanistan. There were more than 15,000 IED incidents last year, according to Pentagon figures. Afghan troops suffered a 124 per cent rise in IED attacks last year as their role on the battlefield grew. As the Afghans prepare to take full responsibility for security, Sergeant Major Naim and the other Afghan engineers are learning from some of the best in the trade. Sapper Ryder had the job of walking ahead of foot patrols, sweeping for IEDs. When he found something suspect, he had to lie out flat and pick away at the earth to confirm it was a bomb. The best comparison he can muster is skydiving - part fear, part thrill. You're lying on your stomach feeling around a device with the tips of your fingers. It's a pretty unique feeling," he says. Sergeant Abdul Udut Rassuly, an explosives ordnance engineer who is furthering his training with the Australians, says Afghans need to look beyond their tribal and local rivalries and start working as a nation. These people [who plant IEDs] kill civilians, they kill villagers, they kill their own relatives. They don't care about their own people. I'm ready to do this job because I do care about the Afghan people," Sergeant Rassuly, 23, says. Yet there are glimpses of a capability that falls short of the standard the Australian Defence Force has set. There have been accidents such as cases of Afghan soldiers keeping live IEDs as trophies, only to have them explode. One ADF member confides the ANA trainees are somewhat arbitrary with their timekeeping, turning up when they like, and knocking off for lunch when they're ready, rather than when the morning's work is done.