Guide to landmines and other weapons
HALO experts clear hundreds of thousands of different weapons each year with one thing in common: the ability to kill indiscriminately. Here's a guide to our most-encountered: landmines, cluster bombs, IEDs and drones.
What are landmines?
Landmines are an enduring and deadly legacy of conflict. Buried underground, they can lie dormant for decades, waiting to be triggered. Last year, they killed 5,000 civilians worldwide – the majority of these were children.
According to the Ottawa Treaty a landmine is: "a munition designed to be placed under, on or near the ground or other surface area and to be exploded by the presence, proximity or contact of a person or vehicle".
Landmines can be divided into two main categories:
Anti-personnel mines
A mine designed to be exploded by the presence, proximity or contact of a person and that will incapacitate, injure or kill one or more persons. Often abbreviated as AP mine.Anti-tank/anti-vehicle mines
A mine designed to be exploded by the presence, proximity or contact of a vehicle. Often abbreviated as AT or AV mine.
Stepping on an anti-personnel mine will either kill a victim outright, or cause severe and life-changing injuries. Landmines do not distinguish between civilians and military personnel, and kill indiscriminately.
This legacy of death, injury and suffering is why the international community adopted the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention in 1997, which prohibits the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of weapons.
Despite the ban, landmines still kill and trap communities in poverty by cutting them off from safe access to health care, education, and farmland.
Types of landmines
Anti-personnel blast mines
Most AP blast mines are pressure-activated, meaning that they detonate when somebody steps on them. They are designed to maim or kill.
Anti-personnel fragmentation mines
In contrast to blast mines, fragmentation mines include additional metal components that fly in all directions.
This will not only injure or kill the person who initiated the mine, but anyone close by. Fragmentation mines are often laid with tripwires.
Anti-personnel directional fragmentation mine
AP directional fragmentation mines detonate in a specific direction. This type of mine is often used for protecting military positions and can be installed at close range with the mine facing away from the position.
Minefields
The Ottawa Treaty defines a minefield as a "dangerous area due to the presence or suspected presence of mines".
They can be set up for the following reasons:
Defensive – to protect soldiers, equipment, supplies or facilities
Tactical – give the defenders a positional advantage
Nuisance – disrupt, delay and weaken enemy forces
Dummy – deceive the enemy about the exact location of real minefields.
What are cluster bombs?
Cluster bombs or cluster munitions are a significant threat to civilians for two reasons: their impact at the time of use and the remnants they leave behind.
Launched from the ground or dropped from the air, these weapons are containers that disperse smaller bombs indiscriminately over a wide area. They claim thousands of civilian and military lives every year.
Between 10 and 40% of cluster submunitions, or 'bomblets', fail to explode on impact and lie hidden in fields, forests, streets, gardens, balconies and schoolyards. It can be decades before an unsuspecting child, farmer or other civilian accidentally disturbs them and triggers the sensitive mechanical fuze.
In 2008, more than 100 countries banned cluster munitions under the Convention on Cluster Munitions. Despite the ban, their deadly legacy lives on. The Cluster Munitions Monitor 2025 recorded new victims in nine countries including Laos, Lebanon, Myanmar, Syria and Ukraine.
What are IEDs?
Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) are sometimes referred to as 'homemade' bombs and the term covers a wide range of designs used for different purposes. They can be made of military and non-military materials and range from simple to highly sophisticated.
Unpredictable, they aim to disrupt and cause maximum damage to people and property. Some IEDs are designed to function in the same way as factory produced landmines, and explode when a person steps on them or a vehicle drives over them.
Some designs can be triggered remotely using mobile phones or radios, while others use trip-wires. IEDs can also resemble more traditional weaponry, including grenades, mortars and rockets. The huge variety of designs and component materials can sometimes make IEDs more complicated to detect and destroy than conventional landmines.
Pakistan was the worst affected country in 2025. Civilians and soldiers were killed alike, but humanitarian workers are often injured or killed by IEDs too.
What are drones?
Drones are changing the face of warfare. Cost-effective, and driven by rapid advances in technology, they open up new strategic and tactical opportunities for countries and armed groups at war.
The term 'drone' includes a wide range of uncrewed combat aerial vehicles used for different purposes. Some are used to drop explosive devices or launch missiles at a target, while others have an integrated explosive charge and are designed to hit a target directly.
Drones vary in size, range and destructive power, from small battery-powered first-person view (FPV) drones with a range of a few dozen kilometres, to large one-way attack drones with small jet engines.
FPV drones are particularly deadly. They stream a live video feed directly to immersive goggles worn by a pilot. This allows them to fly from the drone's perspective. The results are devastating.
FPVs can fly at extreme speeds and flip through small gaps in defences, hunting down small groups of people, single vehicles or even individuals. They can start fires, destroy property and kill several people in crowded areas.
Drones have become an-ever present threat in countries like Ukraine. People live in fear of their relentless buzz, unable to tell if a drone is carrying out surveillance or laden with explosives. The psychological toll on civilians is huge.
The use of drones has intensified over the last few years as costs have dropped significantly. They have been heavily used in Ukraine, Russia, Lebanon, Yemen, Sudan, Gaza and Syria.
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