Iraq: Concern over remote-controlled 'Matrix' mine deployment

Yahoo-AFP: Human Rights Watch raised a red flag over US plans to deploy a new system of remote-controlled anti-personnel mines in Iraq

The New York-based rights watchdog said the US Army had failed to answer critical questions regarding the potential harm the mines might pose to civilians.

The new system, called Matrix, allows a soldier with a laptop computer to detonate Claymore mines remotely via radio signal from several kilometers away.

While Claymores normally propel lethal fragments from 40 to 60 meters (130-200 feet) across a 60-degree arc, Human Right Watch said US Army tests indicated that the hazard range for the new system was as far as 300 meters.

"A faraway blip on a laptop screen is hardly a surefire method of determining if you are about to kill an enemy combatant or an unsuspecting civilian," said Steve Goose, executive director of the watchdog's arms division.

Goose also questioned whether the mines could be inadvertently set off by civilians themselves.

"The Pentagon needs to give concrete assurances that innocent civilians can't accidentally detonate these new Matrix mines," he said. "Otherwise, this system would end up functioning like the old-fashioned antipersonnel mines that more than three-quarters of the world's nations have banned."

According to an article in the March edition of National Defense Magazine, the US Army plans to field a total of 25 Matrix systems in Iraq by May, primarily as a defence shield for military bases. Link