Russian TM-46 anti-tank mine. (Photo US Marine Corps)
Landmines are a reality: grim and totally uncompromising.
Right now, more of these devices are being laid by the Taliban in those parts of Afghanistan where coalition forces are most active. The same applies to Africa, especially in places like the Congo and more recently, parts of Somalia.
An interesting weapon, the landmine, as deadly and destructive today as it was when first deployed by the Chinese in the thirteenth century.
Robert Bryce, in an insightful article for The Atlantic Monthly’s Foreign Affairs,1 discussed how nearly a century before, while serving as a British liaison officer to the Arab tribes during the First World War, T. E. Lawrence, of Lawrence of Arabia fame, developed many of the techniques of modern insurgency warfare. Lawrence’s fluency in Arabic and a profound understanding of Arab culture helped him invigorate the Arab Revolt of 1916–18, while his savvy military tactics certainly ensured its success against the Turks.
He goes on: ‘In his memoir, Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1922), Lawrence revealed his most effective tactic. “Mines were the best weapon yet discovered to make the regular working of their trains costly and uncertain for our Turkish enemy.” If not for Lawrence’s pioneering use of precisely placed explosives, the Arab Revolt might well have failed.’
Russian TM-46 anti-tank mine. (Photo US Marine Corps)
In Iraq, the insurgents are using similar weapons against coalition forces. Today they are called IEDs, Improvised Explosive Devices, rather than mines and the insurgents are targeting automobiles rather than trains. The effect is just as devastating.
The statistics are sobering. The number of mines being used in Iraq, and the share of casualties for which they are responsible, says Bryce, dwarf anything ever before seen by the American military:
During World War 2 three percent of US combat deaths were caused by mines or booby traps. In Korea that figure was four percent. By 1967, during the Vietnam War, it was nine percent, and the Pentagon began experimenting with armoured boots. From June to November of 2005, IEDs were responsible for 65 percent of American combat deaths and roughly half of all non-fatal injuries.
He explains that detonation techniques are many. The insurgents use pressure switches, infrared beams, cell phones, garage-door openers, and even garden hoses, which, when run over by a vehicle, send a stream of water into a small bottle, activating a detonator.
Curiously, though the use of mines in not as widespread in Somalia, largely because of the vast distances that need to be covered by insurgents, the damage cause by these devices can be sobering.
A stash of lifted anti-tank mines. (Author’s Collection)
The landmine problem in Somalia is roughly similar to that of other parts of southern and eastern Africa, which have seen much political and military unrest. It can best be described as a general problem in the southern sectors of Somalia and a very serious one farther north.
Border areas where large numbers of refugees and displaced persons travel are also suspected regions of heavy mine-laying. Though figures are vague and impossible to verify, it is believed that several hundred thousand mines have been emplaced in Somalia during the last few years of uncertainty. Somalia’s unsettled condition further influences the problem, including that of location and booby traps.
Large numbers of refugees from Somalia are reported to be in camps in the surrounding countries such as Ethiopia and Kenya. Additionally, there has been a massive displacement of persons within Somalia. These factors, in conjunction with famine, food distribution, political instability, and struggles for local control have influenced landmine use.
As a result, landmines can be expected on travel routes to prevent movement of refugees to, from, and within, Somalia. That said, large minefields will probably have only been laid around previously contested areas that have been considered important.
An example is the area surrounding the city of Hargeisa. Large patterned minefields, exceeding 100,000 mines, the majority of which anti-personnel, have been laid in sections surrounding the city. Extensive booby-trap activity has also been reported from Hargeisa.
IED-clearing explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) team. (Photo Andrew Guffey)
In Somalia, as elsewhere in Africa, the international community seems committed to handling the problem, but, for a start, nothing can be done before there is a ceasefire in place.
A US State Department survey titled ‘Hidden Killers: The Global Problem with Uncleared Landmines’2 identified almost seventy countries with landmine problems. It also expressed concern at the slow speed that this work was being accomplished and, more importantly, the variable degree of certainty that an area, once certified as clear, is actually completely free of explosives. This has been a recurring problem in places such as Cambodia, Afghanistan, Angola, South Sudan and elsewhere, including Somalia, and is invariably the consequence of ongoing conflict. Africa, with its inordinate range of problems, is likely to be the focus of much of the world’s mine-clearing endeavours in the future.
Another problem likely to be encountered in Somalia once mine-clearing operations begin, is that of booby traps, all of which have to be manually dismantled.
There are a variety of devices encountered by the clearing teams in most African states. Apart from a preponderance of Chinese Type-72s, there are numerous Yugoslavian PROM-1 fragmentation and Czech PP-Mi-Sr bounding anti-personnel mines. Also found are Yugoslavian PMR-2As and PMA-3s, Russian PMNs, East German PPM-2s, the full series of Russian PMDs, and just about every ant-tank mine in the book except South African No. 8s.
PROM-1 bounding anti-personnel mine. (Photo Tracey L. Hall-Leahy)