In hidden IEDs, army fights unknown threat in Manipur

LEIMAKHONG (IMPHAL): Improvised explosive devices are one of the biggest challenges confronting soldiers deployed in insurgency-hit Manipur and mitigating that threat is a top priority, senior army officers said. The predominant weapon of insurgent groups, IEDs have killed, maimed or injured hundreds of soldiers in India’s north-east (NE), including Manipur, over the last three decades.

“It’s a threat that can’t be wished away. And it’s very easy to make an IED. We are evolving our tactics, stepping up counter-IED training and learning from experience,” said Major General VK Mishra, who heads the Leimakhong-headquartered 57 Mountain Division. Seventeen IED explosions have rocked the state this year compared to 44 blasts in 2017.

It doesn’t take a seasoned insurgent to assemble an IED and even greenhorns can do it, experts said. In its most basic form, an IED is nothing but a homemade bomb. “A container, an initiating mechanism, some explosive and a power source is all that is required to put an IED together. A nine-volt battery can initiate it,” said an officer, not authorised to speak to the media.

Ambush and grenade attacks are other means that insurgents employ to target the army and Assam Rifles. The vast area that the security forces operate in, the state’s topography and a 398-km porous border with Myanmar present a thicket of challenges to soldiers who operate from 180 bases scattered across Manipur.

“The road length we have to secure is around 1,630 km. It takes relentless effort and vigil to detect and destroy IEDs,” said Mishra.

It can take up to three hours to sanitise a 10-km road stretch, said another army officer during the demonstration of a road opening party operation on a stretch between Imphal and Moreh on Asian Highway-1 (AH-1).

“Even if we don’t recover anything for, say, three months, we still have to keep at it. The insurgents perhaps are looking at one or more big hits in a year. Our job is to not let them succeed,” said the officer, also not authorised to speak to the media. A total of 59 IEDs have been recovered since the beginning of last year.

Dozens of insurgent camps allow the militants to carry out attacks against soldiers and return to safe havens. Eighteen soldiers were killed in one such attack in June 2015, following which the Special Forces carried out surgical strikes against a few camps in Myanmar imposing heavy casualties on insurgents.

The IEDs came to prominence in the NE, including Manipur, in 1990, when insurgents began emulating the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, experts said.

“Hundreds of soldiers have been killed and injured since then. It’s an unknown threat. You don’t know where it’s lying or who’s operating it. IEDs allow insurgents to inflict high casualties on soldiers and disrupt counter-insurgency operations,” said Lieutenant General SL Narasimhan (retd), who commanded a corps in the NE and is currently a member of the National Security Advisory Board.

IEDs are a weapon of plausible deniability, said Lieutenant General Shokin Chauhan (retd), who was heading the Assam Rifles until April 2018. “There are scores of insurgent groups and anyone can blast an IED and deny they had anything to do with it. Sophisticated IEDs can be sourced from Myanmar. Around 36 soldiers have been killed in the North-east during the last two years,” added Chauhan, who was recently appointed the chairman of the Ceasefire Monitoring Group responsible for implementing ceasefire ground rules between the Centre and Naga insurgent groups.

He said another problem was that security forces did not have enough mine protected vehicles and not all roads supported their movement.