tact of a person or vehicle. ‘Blast’ mines cause damage through the
expansion of heated gases, while ‘fragmentation’ mines injure
through the dispersal of shrapnel. Anti-tank mines were used exten-
sively in Europe and North Africa during the Second World War,
with anti-personnel mines serving to prevent the ready removal of
anti-tank mines by sappers. More generally, Banerjee (1997) has
pointed to six different types of minefield: defensive (‘to prevent an
easy breakthrough by enemy armour’); tactical (‘to channel and
direct the move of enemy’s attacking armour’); border (‘to prevent
infiltration by hostile groups’); dummy (‘to provide a sense of deter-
rence’); nuisance (‘during a withdrawal’); and protective (‘to provide
immediate close protection to a defensive position’). Soviet forces
mined remote areas to prevent their being used as secondary routes
of movement by the resistance; they also mined the verges of major
roads, and lands in the vicinity of significant outposts, as well as
near major headquarters such as the Tajbeg Palace, captured during
the operation to eliminate Hafizullah Amin in 1979. Of the Soviet
mines used in Afghanistan, the remote-delivered PFM-1 and PFM-1s
(‘Butterfly’) mines won particular notoriety, because they were fre-
quently mistaken for toys by children who then suffered the conse-
quences. The PMD-6, PMN, and PMN-2 blast mines were also used;
as were the OZM-3, OZM-4, and OZM-72 bounding fragmentation
mines; the POMZ-2, POMZ-2m, and POM-2s fragmentation mines;
and a range of anti-tank blast mines. There is no reliable estimate of
the total number of mines in Afghanistan, as mine action agencies
are interested in clearing mine fields, which can disrupt community
life irrespective of the total number of mines which they contain
(Maley, 1998a). The 1993 National Survey of Mines Situation in
Afghanistanidentified 2353 minefields, occupying 388.75 square
kilometres (MCPA, 1993), but further research has identified even
more.
Intelligence and communications
Intelligence lies at the heart of effective military operations,
although it cannot compensate for low morale or poor tactical
Soviet Strategy, Tactics, and Dilemmas 51