ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan has taken a number of steps to prevent fertilizers made within its borders for agriculture from being used as explosives in roadside bombs that target American troops in Afghanistan, said a top U.S. military officer Monday.

Brig. Gen. Robert P. Walters Jr., deputy director of the U.S. military’s Joint IED Defeat Organization, spoke in a conference arranged by the Pakistani military in the capital of Islamabad on ways to counter the bombs — often referred to as improvised explosive devices — that account for the vast majority of casualties in Afghanistan.