The widely banned bombs contain dozens of sub-munitions, which sometimes do not explode, becoming de facto landmines that can kill or maim long after they were dropped.
HRW said it had gathered photographs, video and other evidence indicating that cluster munitions had been used in coalition air strikes against the Houthi rebel stronghold of Saada province in Yemen's northern mountains in recent weeks.
It said that analysis of satellite imagery suggested that the weapons had landed on a cultivated plateau, within 600 meters of populated areas.
- Cluster munitions are prohibited by a 2008 treaty adopted by 116 countries, but not by Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners or the US.
"Saudi Arabia and other coalition members - and the supplier, the US - are flouting the global standard that rejects cluster munitions because of their long-term threat to civilians."
Early in the air campaign that it launched on March 26, Saudi Arabia denied it was using cluster munitions.
"We are not using cluster bombs at all," spokesman Brigadier General Ahmed al-Assiri told a Riyadh news conference.
HRW said that the munitions used in Yemen appeared to be the CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapons manufactured by the Textron Systems Corporation and supplied to both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates by the US in recent years.
The weapon is banned by the Convention on Cluster Munitions but Washington permits its use and export because it boasts an unexploded ordnance rate of less than 1 percent.
HRW called for that loophole to be closed and for deliveries of the weapons to cease.
There has been mounting criticism of the civilian toll from the coalition air campaign now in its sixth week.
On April 14, UN human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad al Hussein said recent strikes had hit residential areas and homes across five provinces.
"All such attacks need to be thoroughly and transparently investigated by the coalition forces," he said.
But having invested huge political capital in the campaign against the rebels, Saudi Arabia has vowed that it will go on until exiled President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi is restored.
The rebels and their allies in the armed forces have captured large swathes of the country since overrunning the capital Sana'a in September.
Source:AFP - globaltimes.cn
3/5/15
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Small Arab force ‘lands’ in Aden, alliance accused of cluster bomb use...
ReplyDeleteDozens of Arab special forces troops arrived in Aden on Sunday and deployed alongside local fighters against Yemen's Houthi militia, a militia spokesman said, signaling a major escalation of the country's war.
Saudi Arabia denied that a major ground operation was under way by the anti-Houthi coalition it leads, but declined to comment on special forces -- a topic Riyadh has consistently refused to address in the more than one-month-old conflict.
In Aden, Ali al-Ahmadi, the spokesman for the Southern Popular Resistance, a group defending the southern port city against an advance by the Iranian-allied Houthis, told Reuters.....todayszaman.com
3/5/15