Report Says Syrian Forces Have Used Cluster Bombs
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Version 0 of 1. In the shadow of a confrontation over whether Syria’s government had attacked civilians with internationally banned chemical munitions, a rights group reported Wednesday that Syrian armed forces had repeatedly used cluster bombs, another widely prohibited weapon, in the country’s civil war. The group, Human Rights Watch, said in a report on cluster bomb use that it had documented dozens of locations in Syria where cluster bombs had been fired over the past year. Cluster bombs are munitions that may be fired from artillery or rocket systems or dropped from aircraft. They are designed to explode in the air over their target and disperse hundreds of tiny bomblets over an area the size of a football field. Each bomblet detonates on impact, spraying shrapnel in all directions and killing, maiming and destroying indiscriminately. Those that fail to explode on impact can still detonate like land mines when disturbed later. A growing number of countries have agreed to a treaty banning the weapons and have destroyed stockpiles; Syria is not among them. “Syria is persisting in using cluster bombs, insidious weapons that remain on the ground, causing death and destruction for decades,” Mary Wareham, the advocacy director for the arms division at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. “Meanwhile, other countries around the world that have joined the treaty are showing a strong commitment to get rid of cluster bombs once and for all.” Syria’s government has denied using cluster munitions in the civil war. The Human Rights Watch report said that representatives of the 112 nations that so far have signed the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, which prohibits the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of cluster munitions, are scheduled to meet on Sept. 9 in Lusaka, Zambia, to monitor adherence. According to another rights group, the Cluster Munition Coalition, based in London, there are 85 countries that have not signed the convention, including three permanent members of the Security Council — China, Russia and the United States. Most countries in the Middle East have not signed, including Syria, Israel and Jordan. Two of Syria’s neighbors have: Lebanon and Iraq. The coalition said that children make up one-third of all casualties caused by cluster munitions. It said 60 percent of the total casualties caused by the weapons are civilians going about normal activities. The Human Rights Watch report said the group had identified 152 locations in Syria where government forces had used at least 204 cluster bombs between July 2012 until June 2013, in 9 of the country’s 14 governorates. Several locations, the report said, had been repeatedly attacked with cluster munitions. |