Sniffer dog Panchio (Arms Explosive Search) and handler take a break out of the sun. (Photo courtesy Corporal Natasha Mooney, 104 Military Working Dog Sqadron)

The Paratroopers debussed and took up a defensive position firing back at snipers over the Irish border. There is some argument over whether they were firing back at snipers sited over the Irish border or reacting to ammunition cooking off after the blast. The fact is that the Irish Police did find forensic evidence of firearm use on the hands of two IRA members arrested shortly afterwards and suspected of being involved in the blast. On hearing the explosion a nearby patrol of Royal Marines radioed the contact in and further Paratroopers were sent to the scene of the blast to provide reinforcements. A colonel was despatched together with medical staff by helicopter to take command of the incident and help the injured. Arriving on the scene he set up his command post in a nearby isolated building with a wall around it– a gate lodge – accompanied by other officers, medics and guards.

For some time the IRA had been watching British Army’s tactics in reaction to IEDs and expected the officer commanding the situation to set up his post in the gate lodge. This isolated building was the very reason for the siting of this attack. Just 32 minutes after the first IED was detonated a second and larger IED planted at the gate lodge many days earlier was detonated killing a further 12 soldiers including the colonel and some other officers. The moral of this story? Don’t use obvious isolated cover after an IED attack. Indeed avoid obvious positions at all times as a sniping attack could be used to drive you onto an IED.

Panchio ready for the party with scratch hat and army issue ‘Doggles’. (Photo courtesy Corporal Natasha Mooney, 104 Military Working Dog Squadron)

Booby traps

Because these rely on your efforts to set them off they are generally set up in buildings or vehicles. Any type of building or perhaps a parked car. The reason is pretty obvious; patrolling outside you are going to touch nothing but the ground, so a mine is used, whereas if you have to look in a vehicle or building you might be tempted to touch something and trigger a booby trap.

Avoiding booby traps

To go into a building you have to open the door, tread on the piece of floor inside, then perhaps either put on a light or shine a torch. All of these can be set to trigger an explosion. Because the triggers are often simple and manual, as opposed to electronic, you cannot use a clever electronic gizmo to set off booby traps. By far the best thing would be to send a local in first and have them do all the things which would set off a bomb, but this would not be allowed by the rules of engagement in most Western armies. Failing this, blow open the door and use sniffing equipment or an unfortunate dog to check for explosives. If you have to go in, go in through the window to avoid pressure sensors. Fortunately, just like mines, booby traps are not very selective so they will only be placed where the locals do not go – empty or derelict buildings – so use your head and think if the opposition would have been sure the place was unused. I am not saying the insurgents will lose any sleep about killing a local but they generally won’t want to waste the explosive or electronics.

When you operate in an area affected by an extremist insurgency you will very likely come across suicide bombers so keen to kill you that they are prepared to destroy themselves. In this section I am going to explain how they rig up suicide bomb kits, how they use these bombs and how you can defend against them.

We saw earlier how a missile, artillery shell or bomb dropped from an aircraft is, in principle, just a way that an explosive weapon – a bomb – can be delivered to a given target and that the insurgency variants of these are fairly crude and ineffective owing to lack of technical assets.

We have also seen how a landmine, IED or booby trap is an explosive weapon – again a bomb – which can be laid, hidden, where the enemy, you, will come of your own accord. These are somewhat more effective.

The suicide bomber is a third class of weapon delivery system. It is effectively another explosive weapon with a delivery system which gives it the most dangerous attributes of both the two weapons above: the suicide bomb can be delivered, invisibly and silently, to a precise chosen target and detonated at a time of the attacker’s choosing. Like an invisible guided missile.

Besides generating the reasonable fear of a sudden attack, the suicide bomb has one other attribute which works in its favour; its effect on the Western mind. We Westerners find it difficult to understand the mindset of a person who will choose to kill themselves in order to kill some of us. This terrific dedication or hatred makes us uncomfortable and weakens some people’s resolve to fight them.

As a soldier it is simply important to understand that people can be made to believe the most crazy things and, through holding these beliefs, be persuaded to kill themselves and others. Understanding this takes the psychological sting out of their actions.

The fact is that all religions have a series of basic techniques built into them which press the buttons we all have in our minds and build belief in the individual member. These techniques include meeting with other believers for reinforcement, singing songs which make statements of belief and performing acts which would only be performed voluntarily by someone who already believes – such as giving part of your wages to the priest. These actions, and others, build belief in any human mind by pressing its buttons. A person exposed to these techniques over time has no more choice in what they come to believe than a computer does when you programme it. And of course it works far quicker and stronger on children.

The lack of education, the poverty and the well established religious doctrine that exists in all areas where insurgencies are currently occurring makes for a potent mix. Religious leaders of all kinds have always promised that obedience to their commands will improve what happens when you die. Given you have total belief in that promise, dying as a martyr, and leaving a hard, poverty stricken life, in return for a certain ticket to paradise and lots of pretty girls, is quite good deal. On top of that, if you are a boy growing up in poverty then the promise that the mosque will give money to your family when you have died a martyr and gone to heaven is not going to put you off is it? So suicide bombs are an understandable reality for anyone on current operations, the important thing is to be prepared.

WALKING BOMBS, VEHICLE BOMBS AND INSURGENCY TACTICS

The suicide bomber is a different order of threat to other forms of attacker: ordinarily a person who is going to have a go at you wants to either win a shooting match and survive or at least get away after doing some damage and, again, survive. If they are a reasonably sane bomber then they generally want to plant the bomb with a timer or trip and get away.

To make sure we understand one another, consider this: a bomber walks into a restaurant and places a rucksack bomb down by the coat rack with the timer ticking and set to 10 minutes so he can escape. He turns and begins to walk out. Someone shouts and he runs. He gets away. Certainly the rucksack is now a threat. Some hero – and there is always one – grabs the rucksack and runs outside with it, dropping it down a drain to muffle the blast. A hundred lives are saved and a bomb wasted.

The same bomber walks into the same restaurant with a rucksack bomb on his back, he detonates the bomb. A hundred people die. If you look at this from a purely tactical point of view, it means anyone who wants to survive an encounter must always limit their range of activities to those from which they might reasonably expect to escape. They will only consider a plan that gives them a reasonable chance of survival and more often than not this means they will attack you less effectively.