New York Times: Saudi-Led Group Said to Use Cluster Bombs in Yemen
CAIRO — The Saudi-led military coalition fighting a rebel group in Yemen has in the past few weeks used cluster munitions supplied by the United States, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on Sunday.
The report said video, photographs and other evidence showed that the coalition had used cluster bombs near villages in Yemen’s northern Saada Province. The group, which said it had found evidence that the weapons had been deployed on at least two separate occasions, has not been able to establish whether any casualties had resulted from their use, according to the report.
Cluster munitions, which are banned by much of the world, though not by the United States, Saudi Arabia or Yemen, are considered imprecise weapons that spread ordnance over a wide area and pose a long-term danger to civilians because of the unexploded bomblets they leave behind.
More News On Reports Of Cluster Bomb Use In Yemen
Yemen: Saudi-Led Airstrikes Used Cluster Munitions -- Human Rights Watch
Saudi-led coalition probably used cluster bombs in Yemen: HRW -- Reuters
Yemen: Saudi Arabia used cluster bombs, rights groups says -- BBC
Saudi-led coalition using cluster bombs in Yemen: HRW -- AFP
Saudi-Led Coalition Accused of Using U.S.-Supplied Cluster Munitions in Yemen -- WSJ
Saudi-led coalition used US-supplied cluster munitions in Yemen, group says -- FOX News
Saudi Arabia using controversial cluster bombs in Yemen -- Deutsche Welle
S. Arabia bombs Yemen with US-supplied cluster bombs – HRW -- RT
15 comments:
Yes, because leveling a city with cluster bombs is so much worse than leveling a city by regular.
Aizino,
The issue with cluster bombs are:
- they scatter the bomblets over a large area, ( foot ball field sized dispersion), and as such, unless you are using them against a runway, a tank regiment in lagger, or a column on the move, " imprecise",
- many of the bomblets are bright, look like kids toys, and fail to dentonate.
So, when you use cluster bombs against a village, the whole village winds up littered with UXO.
The Geneva Conventions hold that we arn't supposed to indescriminay flatten towns and cities anymore.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_Cluster_Munitions
Convention smchmension.
Signatories level cities all the time.
Grozny looks positively new age. I have no clue as to why.
BTW, I have had relatives (near ones) on 2 different continents that lived in cities that have been bombed.
Maybe at the time a harshly worded memo was sent out. Today, there would be a hashtag campaign for maybe all of 3 days.
Anzino,
Grozny was rebuilt.
And it's downtown was "flattened", ( incompletely) a couple buildings a day, over the 3 months of the seige. That's what happens when a city is used as a fortress.
But it's nice to know that you hold civillians and non-combatants to be lawful targets in times of war.
The problem is that the Convention is a joke.
"The UNSC rarely invokes its authority regarding the Geneva Conventions and so most issues are resolved by regional treaties or by national law."
Translated: The victor makes the rules.
There were a awful lot of civilians casualties for taking down 2 building a day. Upwards of 80,000 civilians for the conflict.
"When the Russians besieged the Chechen capital, thousands of civilians died from a week-long series of air raids and artillery bombardments in the heaviest bombing campaign in Europe since the destruction of Dresden."
Williams, Bryan Glyn (2001).The Russo-Chechen War: A Threat to Stability in the Middle East and Eurasia?. Middle East Policy 8.1.
Anzino,
The 80,000 count is for all of Chechnia, Dagistan, Intuigeshna, and Beslan.
The War was actually a 4 way, with Russia, an inter-Chechen tribal war, Contractors, and Islamic Jihadists.
Most of the civillians were either Russian Pensioners, or non-aligned tribals.
As all the groups fighting in Chechnia discovered, civillians were easier to kill, and had more valuable stuff to steal, than enemy fighters.
Still, it's a tiny fraction of the numbers the US racked up in Iraq, so, the US is still #1.
Yes, 600 are for Beslan out of the 80,000.
Yup, same old Jay.
It is really amazing how a platoon of Iraqis a platoon of Americans can share the same COP.
Don't worry Anzino, you could not be a more sterotypical American Exceptionalist if you tried.
Yup, we are all John Walkers.
Counties that have not ratified the the 2008 convention are China, US, USSR, Saudi Arabia, Iran, India, Brasil among others.
Countries that have ratified it are poor countries, protected countries, micro-states and the lot.
http://www.stopclustermunitions.org/en-gb/the-treaty/treaty-status.aspx
It makes as much sense as banning landmines. I am sure Princess Di would have done something terrifying if the mines in the DMZ had been removed and the NORKS attacked. If she were still alive, she might have shook her fist, put out a press release or deployed a state of the art hashtag campaign.
Why doesn't the stop this stop that Simon says community have a no EMPs campaign? If someone violates it, what are they going to do except flop over?
Nuclear Freeze, the ban on landmines and cluster bombs sure prevent the slaughter in Rwanda. Good thing they had no advanced weapons.
Jay .... your information on Grozny is correct .... especially on the suffering that Russian pensioners had to endure when the war broke out. I always assumed that Chechens made up the majority of the city .... but no .... when the war broke out I was surprised that there were a lot of Russian citizens in the city .... and they were used as human shields by the separatists. It is one of the many reason why many Russians .... myself included .... have a negative view towards Chechens. As I tell my mother .... as a Christian I have to be forgiving .... but it is hard.
WNU Editor,
The reason there were so many pensioners, was a combination of climate, and Soviet and Russian economics.
Basically, on a pension, your rouble bought a much better life in Chechnyia, than Moscow, which was quickly becoming unaffordable as the Carpetbaggers flooded in.
In the beginning, the Chechen's didn't deliberately use them as human shields, they just had no way or place to evacuate them to, and the pensioners didn't have the money to leave.
By the midpoint of the war, all sides beat up the pensioners, as theybwere the only ones with a couple of roubles to their name.
When the Drug Wars come to the Yucatan and the Baha, you will see the same thing happen to the US Pensioners there.
And now I know why WNU feels a little animosity towards the Chechens.
Aizino,
To try to put into a perspective you might understand,
Every day, US Army Engineers would carefully go out into the minefields surrounding US Firebases in Vietnam, and add new landmines, and every noght, Viet Cong Sappers would crawl into thise same minefields, and steal mines to plant along US Patrol paths and roadways.
Roughly 1/4 of all US Casualties, and 1/3 of the South Vietnamese Military, were caused by "proliferated" US landmines "liberated" by the Viet Cong.
To this day, large swaths of "productive" land world wide, are still off limits to development, because of minefields and cluster munitions, ranging from the oil and gas fields in Lybia, Egypt, Tunesia, dating from WWII, through Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, to areas involved in the current wars.
An Italian PL-16 landmine is undetectable, lasts for well over 100 years and costs $7. A US GL-22 cluster munition is bright yellow, looks like a Pokemon, lasts about 70 years and cost's $11.50.
Each one of these munitions has to be cleared after the war, and it's the "International" community that foots the bill most of the time. That bill has an average cost of $1,567 per munition, often footed by the US Taxpayer.
When lost oppertunity costs are included, the bill can run to close to $10k for each cheap little bomblet.
Currently, there are no shortage of Area Denial weapons that are more precise, less issue to deal with, kill far fewer civillians. Are affordable, and are less likely to be proliferated.
Those Italian PL-16 landmines, that were and are still blowing feet off in Afghanistan, were sold to Bulgaria, where enterprising locals lifted them out of Bulgarian minefields in the border with Turkey, and sold them on, first to the Muj, later to the Talibs, some were "lifted" in the 80's, some are still being lifted today.
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