by Mukul Deva
*
Named in all probability after the large two-handed Scottish sword invented by Norman A. Macleod, the M18 Claymore antipersonnel mine was first developed and deployed by the Americans. The improved, deadlier M18A1 was developed well in time for use during the Vietnam War. The mine has a plastic casing that is 21 centimetres long, 8 centimetres high and 3 centimetres deep. It stands on two adjustable legs that can be used to balance it in all kinds of terrain and make basic height adjustments. The plastic casing has a steel sheet at the back, 680 grams of plastic explosives and 700 steel balls in the front. When triggered the device fires these steel balls in a 60 degree horizontal arc inflicting deadly damage within 50 metres and is capable of causing injury as far away as 250 metres.
The Claymore is an excellent anti-infiltration device and is very effective in ambushes. During 1969 to 1992 the United States exported over 1.36 million Claymore mines to 28 countries. Cambodia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Somalia were amongst those that benefitted from this largesse. So, in the aftermath of the US support to the Afghani mujahideen it was Pakistan where these mines were readily available. That is why Force 22 had chosen it for this mission.
Today the word Claymore mine is a generic term for any round or rectangular directional fragmentation munitions that can function either in a command-detonated mode or the victim-activated mode. The 1997 Mine Ban Treaty clearly prohibits the use of such mines in the victim-activated mode, since one never knows who or what will trigger it off. However its use in the command-assisted mode is considered acceptable.
Vikram Tiwathia was a God-fearing and law-abiding man. He had a deep respect for the law, even for some of the ones he had never heard about. That possibly is one of the reasons why the beefed-up Claymore deployed by the Force 22 officers was command-activated and not the banned victim-assisted mode type. Another even more appropriate reason was that they needed to ensure it took out the right man and not just the first poor sod who happened to trip over it.
The bodyguards were scanning the faces of the few other early morning walkers in the park with the casual manner of semi-trained people, not mentally involved with their work. Even so they were careful to go through the motions since the man they protected could be bad-tempered and abusive when things did not go his way.
Watching through his binoculars from about three hundred metres away, Tiwathia kept a close eye on the small but prominent white mark he had notched on the trunk of the third tree. The tiny aiming mark was at a height of about seven feet and clearly visible to Tiwathia. It would not be obscured from sight by anyone walking under it. The aiming mark had been placed so as to give enough lead time for the target to be in optimum position when the mine exploded.
Tiwathia involuntarily held his breath as the target closed in on the aiming mark. ‘Now!’ He whispered to himself the minute the target’s body came in line with the white mark and pressed the tiny remote he was holding. An unseen signal leapt out from the remote and raced across the park to the tiny radio receiver attached to the detonator in the beefed-up Claymore mine.
There was a barely audible hiss and a click as the detonator triggered. The mine detonated almost immediately unleashing a hail of shrapnel and pellets along the arc in which the target was located. Almost one thousand pieces of deadly steel bearings saturated the area in front of the Claymore.
From across the park, Katoch and Tiwathia watched the explosion keenly. Katoch swept the fallen target with the sniper scope of his rifle. He was the back-up to take out the target in case he survived the blast. Tiwathia used his binoculars. He raked through the mass of bodies lying across the park.
‘We got him.’
‘Let’s make sure.’
They both scanned the fallen men carefully for another moment. ‘I can see one of the men moving but the mark is definitely down.’
The two men swiftly crept out of the bushes. After a careful look around they rose to their feet and casually merged with the crowd that had started to gather around. The sniper rifle had been abandoned in the bushes, the latex gloves peeled off and returned to their pockets. They stood in the crowd for a few moments. As the crowd increased the two men broke away from it unobtrusively and casually walked out down the bylanes crisscrossing the colony around the park.
As they were about to turn a corner and get out of the line of sight of the park, they stopped. ‘Fire in the hole,’ Tiwathia half whispered to himself as he triggered the tiny remote in his hand once again. The second bomb was placed high in the tree, about fifty feet away from where the Claymore mine had been. It went off with a loud bang and sent everyone scurrying for the outskirts of the park.
‘That should keep the buggers busy for some time,’ Tiwathia grinned at Katoch as they turned and moved off, this time at a much faster pace.
1550 hours, 31 October 2005, Link–Up Point Akbar, Somewhere South of Fort Abbas, Pakistan.
Tony checked his watch again to see if it was time to wake up Sami. He was looking forward to his second share of shut-eye. Like every good soldier he knew that one could never get enough sleep. ‘Tiwathia and Katoch should be here soon. Then we will all get some rest,’ he muttered to himself as his eyes relentlessly scanned the area around. Not that there was anything casual in the manner in which he kept watch. He was a hardcore professional and knew that careless sentries got people killed.
The late afternoon sun had started to throw its redness across the desert sands and the silence around them was almost complete. That is why Tony picked up the sharp metallic sound almost instantly. ‘Get up. There is something out there,’ he hissed as he shook Sami awake. ‘Check out the other side,’ he added as he crawled a little higher up the sand dune to enhance his field of vision.
Sami awoke instantly in the catlike way that Special Forces men the world over do. He picked up his weapon and headed for the opposite dune silently and swiftly. Climbing to the top of the dune Sami immediately spotted the Pakistan Rangers five hundred metres away. Instinctively, he pulled himself back to ensure he was not spotted. Not that there was any real danger of that happening, seeing the manner in which the patrol was advancing.
The patrol was blundering along in the casual fashion of bored men on a routine patrol.
Naik (Corporal) Hameed, the NCO leading the Pakistan Rangers patrol, was one of those stalwarts who rose through the ranks by the sheer weight of the number of years of service that he’d put in and not by the slightest hint of merit. Paramilitary forces the world over have an abundance of his type thronging the ranks. In times of peace they are the last ones to retire from service simply because, despite all their cribs and gripes, they know the outside world will be hard for them to survive in. During times of war and conflict they are generally the first to die, simply because they have never bothered to cultivate the skills required to survive. This in itself is not much of a problem, but for the fact that more often than not their stupidity causes many others to die with them. Hameed, the NCO in question today, had only a vague idea about reading maps and a vaguer idea still of what patrolling entailed.
‘This way,’ Sami mouthed as he gestured in the direction of the patrol coming towards them. He held up five fingers to let Tony know that there were five men. Tony rapidly checked the other direction to ensure that the coast was clear on his side before he slid down the dune and stealthily made his way towards Sami. Both men watched the patrol carefully, cocking their weapons as they did.
‘The buggers are lost,’ Tony observed. ‘See the way they are all clustering around the map.’
‘Stupid jerks. If these fuckers had been moving around like this in the Valley or even on the island they would have been dead meat by now.’
‘Who gives a shit? I just hope they stay away from us.’
But that was not to be.
‘Crap!’ Sami swore as the Rangers patrol started moving. ‘They are heading straight for us.’
‘We’ll have to take them down.’
Both men contemplated t
he situation for a moment.
‘Okay. Here is what we will do.’ Tony and Sami had trained together as a team long enough; it took them only a moment to decide on a plan of action. ‘You stay here. I’ll take that dune. Keep the bike between us. If they wander up to us you take the lead guy out. I’ll handle the rear.’
‘Let’s just hope no one else is around to hear the gunfire.’
The two men swiftly moved into position on the two dunes shouldering the track that led up to the motorbike lying in the sand. The motorcycle was to be the bait that would draw the patrol’s attention. The path between the dunes leading up to it was the killing ground of the ambush. The two men tightened their grip on their weapons as the Rangers patrol drew inexorably closer.
The lackadaisical attitude of the Rangers was clear from the way their weapons were slung across their shoulders and the fact that they were busy talking to each other rather than paying attention to their surroundings. ‘I guess one can’t really blame them,’ thought Tony as he watched the Rangers ambling into target. ‘Most of these guys are posted to bleak borders like this one for far too many years; nothing ever breaks the monotony.’
That was a fact. The only people the Rangers ever saw traversing this godforsaken stretch of desert border were the occasional smugglers, like Afzal, young terror recruits being sent into Pakistan for training and trained terrorists being sent back into India, whom they provided launch pads for. All three categories were a good source of income and provided a much-required break in the tedium. They always looked forward to bumping into them.
‘Holy shit!’ The man leading the patrol exclaimed loudly as the five men came through the path between the dunes and saw the motorcycle lying in the sand. There was a moment’s stunned silence before a verbal storm erupted:
‘What the hell…’ began the patrol leader.
‘It’s a motorcycle!’
‘We can see that, you idiot…‘
‘Where the hell did it come from?’
The man leading the patrol began to unsling his weapon from his shoulder as they all started towards the bike. He was the one Sami shot first. This was the signal for Tony to start firing. He fired a short two-round burst cutting down the last man in the patrol a split second after the first man dropped. The sudden volley of shots galvanized the remaining three men. They ran helter-skelter, grabbing for their weapons as they scrambled to get off the track and run for cover. The second last man tripped over the body of the last man as he turned. He did not get up; Tony’s next burst opened two gaping holes in his chest. The last two Rangers managed to get almost to the edge of the killing zone before Sami cut them down.
The action was over in a matter of seconds and the crash of gunfire settled into the silence of the desert once again. After the ear-shattering hail of gunfire the silence that descended seemed even more ominous.
*
About 500 metres away from Akbar, Katoch and Tiwathia heard the crash of gunfire. They exchanged worried glances. ‘That’s from the direction of the link-up point.’
Tiwathia, who was driving, quickly veered towards the nearest dune and brought the jeep to a screeching halt in the lee of the dune. Seconds later, they were racing towards Akbar with their weapons at the ready. They split up as they got closer and began to move alternately in short hops, each covering the other man as he moved forward. Moving swiftly but cautiously it took them almost ten minutes to close in on the link-up point.
Yet again it was Tony with his animal instincts who sensed rather than heard them first. He nudged Sami and hissed, ‘Someone else is coming up.’ He cocked his head slightly and pointed, ‘That way.’
Immediately, they both took cover again as Katoch and Tiwathia converged on the link-up point from different directions. Tiwathia covered Katoch as he closed in on the cluster of dunes. Sami spotted Katoch first. ‘Tony…cool it,’ he called out urgently. ‘It’s Vicky and Katoch.’
Tony emerged from behind the dunes. ‘Next time just honk, okay?’ He had a wide grin on his face. ‘What’s happened to your field craft, guys? We heard you coming a mile away.’
Suddenly there was an eruption of sound and static from the cluster of bodies lying beside the motorcycle. Someone seemed to be trying to raise the Rangers patrol on the radio set. For a second all four of them froze.
‘That’s torn it!’ Sami reacted first. ‘We can expect a search party real soon. You guys get ready to pull out. I’ll just take a minute to leave a welcome mat for the next lot that comes along.’ He began to rummage through his rucksack and pull out what he needed.
By the time the other three men had grabbed their gear Sami had set the explosives and wired the booby trap to the motorcycle. Then the four men raced off into the desert, back towards the jeep. Like all military plans this one too had a back-up.
‘Do you think we should tell Tiwari that we are heading for Birbal, the alternate link-up point?’ Tony asked as they climbed into the jeep.
‘I’d rather not transmit anything right now. It would really put the wind up the Pakis and they would know for sure where we are.’
‘I agree,’ Katoch concurred. ‘Let’s watch and see how things unfold.’
A silence descended on them as the jeep raced away into the desert. They all knew that the operation was not going to be simple any longer. Sooner or later the patrol would be missed and people would come looking for them. It would not take a genius to link the death of the patrolmen with the killings in Multan and Bahawalpur.
1630 hours, 31 October 2005, Ranabhana BOP on the Indo–Pakistan Border.
The officer commanding the Pakistani BOP who had sent out the patrol under Naik Hameed was very irritated when his radio operator told him the patrol was overdue and not responding. ‘Why? Why the heck aren’t they responding?’ he demanded to be told.
‘I don’t know, sir.’ The man shrugged helplessly at the senseless question.
‘The bloody fool!’ This was not the first time that Hameed had returned late from a patrol. However this was the first time that he had failed to respond on the radio set. ‘I’m going to kill him when he gets back. The stupid…’ he muttered under his breath. To the radio operator he said, ‘What the hell are you hanging around here for? Go and keep trying to raise those morons. Let me know as soon as you get those idiots on air. That motherfucker Hameed! He is going to be on everybody’s shit list tonight. I swear I will kill him…’
The Company Commander would have been a lot more perturbed if he had known that the hapless Hameed was already dead, as were the four others in his charge.
Ten minutes elapsed. The Company Commander could not control his impatience. He walked up to the radio hut.
‘Anything from them?’
‘No, sir,’ the radio operator replied. ‘Not a peep.’
By the time the Company Commander finally decided to send out the second patrol, darkness was barely an hour away. ‘I just hope he does nothing to jeopardize my retirement,’ he thought to himself as he cursed Hameed for the enth time and went out to brief the second patrol.
The second Pakistan Rangers patrol was just starting out from Ranabhana BOP when the four Force 22 officers reached Birbal, the alternate link-up point about four kilometres south-west of Akbar. The four commandos were now almost directly north of Chengiz Khan, in the gap between the Pakistani BOPs of Ranabhana and Lambawala Toba. This is from where they had entered Pakistan and this is from where they were to exit tonight.
The commandos had no way of knowing that they were now almost directly in the path of the second Rangers patrol that had just left the border outpost seven kilometres to their north-west and was going to retrace the original route of the first patrol.
Nor had they anyway of knowing that the point on the map known to them as ‘Birbal’ was known as ‘Bound Three’ to the Pakistanis. It was one of the selected bounds that all Pakistani patrols moving between Ranabhana and Lambawala halted at. But then it is these small coincidences that acquire critical m
ass in battle and result in people getting killed.
IQBAL
1540 hours, 07 November 2005, Terrorist Camp in Jungle above Hari, Kashmir.
Iqbal deliberately avoided the route that Omar and he had taken when they had left the camp five days ago. It’s the most logical way in and out of the camp. I am sure there will be a sentry keeping an eye on it. He skirted the base of the mountain for almost an hour till he saw a ravine that seemed to run all the way up to the top. Surveying the climb carefully he then started his ascent to the camp.
Half an hour later, he realized that it was a very bad climb. The gradient was steep and the loose shale was treacherous. More than once his foot lost its grip and he went tumbling down a few feet. The cold and the rapidly descending darkness of a long winter night added to his misery. Still, the rigorous training he had undergone in the camp in Muzaffarabad and his determination to get there were to his advantage. Eventually, the rhythm of the mountains began to return to him. His grip steadied. The craggy terrain felt familiar once again. His mind and feet stopped playing tricks on him. With every passing moment his movements became more surefooted as his body acclimatized to the incredible cold and darkness of the night.
Cresting the last fold of the ravine, Iqbal was confronted by a small, flattish ledge. There was something familiar about it. He looked around it as he stopped to catch his breath. It took a few moments before realization dawned. This is where we buried the instructor. Iqbal squinted in the dark. Yes. Definitely the same spot. In his mind’s eye Iqbal once again saw the sentry leaning against the shovel as they took a break from the digging. ‘Motherfucking Pakis…the only good ones are the dead ones,’ he had said. The harsh laugh that had followed the sentry’s words rang so clearly in his head that for a moment Iqbal almost thought there was someone with him. He thought about what the sentry had said:
