The United States, despite not signing a 2008 global treaty banning cluster bombs, has nevertheless complied with the prohibition by not using the weapons during its battle against the Islamic State terrorist group (banned in Russia), Human Rights Watch said in an annual report on Friday.
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 30th August, 2018) The United States, despite not signing a 2008 global treaty banning cluster bombs, has nevertheless complied with the prohibition by not using the weapons during its battle against the Islamic State terrorist group (banned in Russia), Human Rights Watch said in an annual report on Friday.
"There is no evidence that the US or its coalition partners have used cluster munitions against the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) in Syria and Iraq," Human Rights Watch said in a press release announcing the publication of the report.
Cluster munitions break apart in the air, dispersing multiple 'bomlets,' many of which fail to explode and instead behave much like landmines by killing and maiming civilians who later step on the mini explosives.
The report criticized the United States for continuing and even hardening its defense of cluster munitions for use in some circumstances.
A November 30, 2017, Defense Department policy directive abandoned a long-standing policy requiring the US not to use cluster munitions that result in more than a 1 percent unexploded ordnance after 2018, the report explained.
The report also claimed that Syrian government forces used cluster bombs on rebel-held areas throughout 2017 and the first half of 2018.
In Yemen, far fewer cluster munition attacks were reported over the last year by a Saudi-led coalition that has conducted a military operation against Houthi forces in Yemen since March 2015, according to the report.
The report titled, Cluster Munition Monitor 2018, is the ninth annual assessment of the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) of nongovernmental organizations, which was co-founded and is chaired by Human Rights Watch.
