The Hindu : Claymore mine - a lethal weapon

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Oct 03, 2003

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Claymore mine - a lethal weapon

By Our Special Correspondent

A claymore mine set up allegedly by the People's War seized by the police during one of the operations. — Photo: K. Ramesh Babu

HYDERABAD Oct. 2. The devastating claymore mine is named after the Scottish sword used by William Wallace portrayed by Mel Gibson in his Oscar-winning Hollywood blockbuster `Brave Heart'.

The 42-inch-long claymore sword with a 13-inch handle enjoys a permanent place in the annals of Scottish history and now it enjoys a chillingly similar status in several States where left-wing militants have included the claymore mine in their deadly arsenal.

The claymore mine, which nearly claimed the life of the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu, in Tirupati on Wednesday, was originally conceived by the Germans during the Second World War and was developed as an anti-personnel mine by the United States during the Korean war. The mine almost became a favourite of proponents of guerilla warfare as it was the deadliest when combined with shoot-and-scoot ambushes.

The People's War, which had mastered the art of guerilla warfare, was trained by LTTE dropouts in the use of IEDs. The crude method of planting gelatine beneath the road surface and blasting it as a police vehicle passes by continues to be the biggest threat for the police force in Andhra Pradesh.

The People's War began using the claymores after police stopped using vehicles and began moving on foot during anti-extremist operations. The claymores were effective against foot patrol teams as the militants camouflaged them in shrubs or hung them on trees. As police began following standard military formations while on the move, the PW too improvised the techniques and began planting the mines in most unexpected places.

In 1996, they kept a claymore hidden in a heap of stones along the road to hit a police patrol team in Nizamabad. Subsequently, they used a stationary bullock-cart to conceal the mines in an attack on a car taking Congress followers in the same district. The same technique was used to target Mr. Naidu during his election campaign in Karimnagar.

The PW cadres pack rectangular metal boxes with gelatine, combined with metal spikes or balls, to act as shrapnel. The shrapnel fly out with great velocity and the effective range could be up to 250 metres in the cone formation. The effective killing range is up to 30 metres. The claymore becomes more lethal in view of the horizontal, but conical impact zone, while a landmine buried beneath the road surface has a vertical impact zone.

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