am or so, thankfully feeling good in the stomach. After a broad stretch and a yawn, followed by a brisk walk outside to clean my face and scrub my teeth in the river nearby, it was inside for yet another feed - this time on eggs, rice, bread and more rice.
I guess you’re now starting to see, like I was, that the Afghans eat mainly rice. Well, when they can, they do. But the giant flat bread, naan, and black chai are really the primary ingredients when items are short. I’ll admit I can live on tea and naan and almost did too, many months later, which is described in another chapter to come.
ooOoo
The rest of the mission went fine, and I was always thinking I must have looked like a small child running through a toy shop as I was completely overwhelmed by the sight of all this mostly functional military equipment and machinery. The trip was also inter-dispersed with several interesting moments, like when I was asked to fire the AK-47 rifle by one of our local guards. These types of events became quite common during my following five years in the country. It often started with me innocently asking questions about the weapons hardiness and how often they needed to clean them, etc., as in the army we were always told that the AK-47, often referred to as the Kalashnikov rifle, was an extremely resilient weapon and needed very little care. Well, that certainly was true and continues even today. The AK-47 and the huge variety of copies that are manufactured around the world continue to be the working man’s choice of firearm for combat. You can own an AK-47 for twenty years and never really need to pull it apart and clean it. Firing the beast basically clears out any dust, or rust, and the silly thing just keeps firing. Born out of the early 1950s and designed by Mikhail Kalashnikov, hence the name of the weapon and the initials (i.e. Avtomat Kalashnikova), it has become the most popular rifle in conflict. It is extremely cheap to manufacture, because of its simplicity in materials and design, and requires very little training to fire. With an effective range of over 300 metres due to its basic iron sights, it is also short in length and therefore effective for urban terrain fighting. Although much heavier than modern combat rifles and not generally suited to fixing electro-imaging sights and bright torch lights and other accessories, for the basic fighter, it remains highly effective. So, when asked to fire the Kalashnikov, I eagerly accepted and shot many rounds at nearby trees, large boulders and other objects. The local guards all watched me intently as they thought I’d have no idea about firearms. It was my army training that had taught me to receive the weapon, check safety was on, take of the magazine, cock the weapon to expel any rounds from the chamber, then release the working parts, replace the magazine, cock the weapon, set the firing distance on the sights and then check the backdrop of my target, select my aiming point and then actually hit the target. It was simple and rehearsed through years in the army, but to these local former mujahideen, my actions were inspiring. The four with me at this original time just goggled at me as again I cleared the weapon, and handed it back to its owner is a safe condition. Looking over my target area as I left, I saw the guards all pointing and talking about my shooting and weapon handling. It was a little bit of an ego thing for me, but to be honest, all I did is what I would expect any soldier to do, whenever given a foreign weapon and then being challenged to hit specific targets.
During the third or fourth day and after finishing my first visit to the active minefields, an interesting issue in the use of a particular booby-trap, by the Soviets, became a subject of conversation with the deminers. Surprisingly, I was to hear this many more times during trips into Afghanistan and more often in Peshawar. The strange and sometime manipulated perceptions of landmines and landmine clearance really began in those early days of the late 1980s and the very early 1990s. In fact, the thought of intentional booby-traps targeting kids and women became such an issue within our demining efforts that a large amount of the effort was afforded in dealing with these varied views and ideas.
The first time I heard of this subject was on this Paktia mission, shortly after the deminers and I had returned to the ATC camp. As we were unloading our kit and making ready for the following day, one of the deminers held up a Russian MUV fuse, which did not have any explosive detonator attached to it, and said it was a common booby trap for kids and that everyone should be careful if they saw one. I looked in amazement at this deputy team leader of the deminers, but I didn’t say anything just then, as I was a little confused. I do remember saying to myself, “What the heck is he talking about?” as I walked back to my room to take a wash before dinner. But, I thought I had better check this out before opening my big mouth straight away.
As I pondered the issue later that evening, comments I had heard well before, came back to me. Claims that explosive pens had been produced just to attract children and adults to pick them up seemed to solidify in my mind. It was clear that the MUV fuses developed and deployed by the Soviets had some unintended features that, to the untrained eye, may make them appear ‘pen-like’. But the design of these fuses was simple. They were designed for functionality; to fit into an explosive device or landmine. Thin, long and metallic, perhaps they did have some minor similarities to pens, I supposed.
The MUV fuses have no explosive charge in them, only mechanical parts that initiate a mechanical movement of a firing pin. A separate explosive detonator can be screwed onto the MUV fuse and in turn, this is used to detonate other explosive charges. If being held in the hand when this detonator explodes, it will definitely tear off fingers and cripple a hand. The fuse itself, even when attached to the detonator, has several specialised safety pins and wire connection ports that really do not make it look much like any sort of pen I have ever seen. But, the MUV fuses were used in large numbers inside Afghanistan as they had a variety of purposes, like much of the Soviet era equipment, including being placed in a hand grenade or a variety of landmines … or even real booby-traps. Often used in minefields, the MUV fuses and their attached detonators might get left behind solely by accident, or perhaps after being removed from a device. But they were not intended, by design, to be used as booby-traps for children or any other civilians. Neither were they developed or designed to resemble anything like a pen; they just do (a little!). As this was one of my early trips inside Afghanistan, I was still learning a great deal, but it was clear to me that the item was clearly a fuse only and certainly not a stand-alone booby-trap.
But other perceptions on the issue of landmines and subsequent items were perhaps even more concerning. And most of these were based on rumours, incorrect information reports and false allegations about how the explosive components were designed and used. When I first arrived in Pakistan and started to understand the issues facing ATC in their mine clearance operations, I also came to hear of many of these inaccurate reports. It was common for the uninformed - or for those attempting to deliberately criticise the concepts of ‘war fighting’ landmine use, or perhaps explicitly the Soviets - to say that explosive devices were shaped like toys or pens and used to attack children and women. This was largely untrue though perhaps, like in almost all types of warfare, some minor elements of either side may have manipulated certain devices for their own means. Certainly this was not a regular or a planned issue from the Soviets as I understood it, or the mujahideen, or the CIA, or any other of the major actors in the Afghan war of 1979–1989.
In a similar vein, the PFM-1 butterfly landmine is an extraordinary-looking device, in a bright green or sandy colour that can appear toy-like, though this is not its intended design or deployment. It is a small plastic device of about 120 millimetres in length and 60 centimetres in width, with a fusing tube along the centre of about 20 millimetres thick. The fusing tube, with its metal rim, holds the fuse and actuator. Both sides of the PFM-1 are similar and are shaped wing-like. Though one is thin and of just hard plastic, whilst the other is eight millimetres thick and holds a liquid form of explosive. The hard wing aids this air-delivered landmine as it flutters down to the ground; they are deployed out of canisters from war planes and helicopters in groups of 122 mines all packed together. The explosive in this small landmine is liquid so that, when stepped on the liquid squeezes into the actuation (or fusing) tube and the device detonates. The results typically end in the loss of much of a foot, or hand. I know that kids did pick these light green landmines up, thinking they were toys, but again the design and deployment was not meant to lure children to them. Interestingly, they can be picked up safely by the hard plastic wing and carried away
