AFGHANISTAN: BATTLE AGAINST EXPLOSIVE ORDNANCE
AFGHANISTAN – A GLANCE AT THE UNPLEASANT FRIGHTS OF EXTANT IEDs By Shafi Ullah (Ahmadzai) - Head of Quality Management, Directorate of Mine Action Coordination (DMAC)
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IRTH OF A NEW ADVERSARY
Afghanistan, in its battle against explosive ordnance, remains at the brink of uncertainty since it first started responding to the explosive ordnance contamination in 1989. Over the decades, the mine action programme of Afghanistan has continued to grapple with legacy contamination1 and continual littering of explosive ordnance stemming from ongoing conflicts. The programme, albeit faced with backbreaking challenges of access, several parties at conflict, and new contaminations, has managed to succeed in minimizing civilian casualties from the legacy contamination. It has, however, been introduced to the new, alarming challenge of improvised mines, the largest contributor to civilian casualties currently. The improvised explosive device (IED), also called improvised mine, was first used in Afghanistan back in 2008 by the anti-government elements (AGEs). It was, at the time, a new and unique tool availed to gain a strategic advantage in clashes between armed forces of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GoIRA) and AGEs. The geographical awareness aided the AGEs in masking and strategically placing the IEDs to deter movement and passively attack military convoys. As a result, they were widely planted on roadsides earning them the name minehaye kinaar’e jaada2 initially, meaning roadside mines.
While the legacy explosive ordnance is relatively easier to identify by the affected populations when exposed, the IEDs are made from usual items making them extremely difficult to recognize. This puts forward a threat that blends naturally with everyday objects. It is the primary reason many fail to notice the underlying dangers of IEDs masked as canisters, stones, pressure cookers etc. As a result, the casualty rates have risen dramatically since 2008, the dark year when the IED was first used in Afghanistan.
FROM BATTLEFIELDS TO RESIDENTIAL SPACES The IEDs were easy and cheap to make and the materials required widely available; as a result, the use of IEDs quickly gained pace as it continued to cause significant damage from a distance, restricted movement, and proved near impossible to trace. With it, the motive of using it in battlefields also evolved as the improvised mine found its way to places it does not belong i.e. inside cities where innocent civilians outnumber military presence significantly. The voices of affected populations somehow seem lost in the soul wrenching echoes of never - ending explosions. The magnetic IED has provided the decades long terror with wheels, as it can easily attach to vehicles assisting the AGEs to conduct targeted killings.
1 Pre 2001 contamination resulting from the Soviet invasion. 2 Dari term for roadside mines.
counteriedreport.com
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