Egyptian-made cluster bombs used in Syria - HRW

15/01/2013

By Caroline Akoum and Abdul Sattar Hatita

Beirut/Cairo - Human Rights Watch (HRW) yesterday released a detailed report alleging that the Syrian regime’s forces are using a new, more indiscriminate kind of cluster bomb, further claiming that the bombs are Egyptian-made. While the Egyptian President is yet to respond to the report, an Egyptian military expert told Asharq Al-Awsat that Egypt does not manufacture cluster bombs. However, an HRW official stressed that “the information we have proves the authenticity of the report”.
In response to Asharq Al-Awsat’s questions, a source in the Egyptian presidential institution said that the report dealt with a military subject that he was unable to comment upon. He added: “any comment on this subject should come from a military official in the armed forces”. He went on to say that the president’s response would not be immediate, and that the details of the report need to be examined.
While no Egyptian army spokesperson was available for comment, Major General Sameh Seif el-Yazal, a military expert, said that what was revealed in the HRW report was “illogical” and contrary to Egypt’s stance, siding with the Syrian rebels. Asked whether Egypt had perhaps supplied the cluster bombs to the Syrian regime at an earlier period, Seif el-Yazal said that Egypt “as far as I am certain, does not manufacture cluster bombs or any other internationally-banned explosive. Egypt only makes conventional munitions in Arab Organization for Industrialization (AOI) factories”.
Seif el-Yazal went on to say that Egypt and the Egyptian armed forces “are not providing the Syrian army or the revolutionaries with any weapons or ammunition, whether directly or indirectly, not even through a third party. This is for certain”.
Seif el-Yazal called into question the credibility of HRW’s information, adding that “another thing is that Egypt’s current relationship with, and support for, the Syrian rebels confirms that it cannot support the Syrian regime in any way”. He added that the current regime in Egypt has declared its full support for the Syrian rebels on several occasions, and “it would be irrational and inconceivable for the Egyptian state to support the rebels and then send munitions to the Syrian regime, which is in a state of collapse”.
However, Nadim Houry, director of HRW’s Beirut office, confirmed to Asharq Al-Awsat that the organization has information to prove what was revealed in the report, saying: “we obtained what we published from several sources. The report also includes photographs, taken by an international journalist, depicting these Egyptian-made bombs, but we cannot ascertain the year Syria obtained them”. Houry pointed out that “Egypt is one of the countries that manufacture cluster bombs, and HRW has already asked them to stop producing this kind of internationally prohibited weapon”.
Stephen Goose, director of HRW’s Arms Division, said that “Syria is escalating and expanding its use of cluster munitions, despite international condemnation of its embrace of this banned weapon. It is now resorting to a notoriously indiscriminate type of cluster munition that gravely threatens civilian populations”.
In turn, a Free Syrian Army (FSA) officer told Asharq Al-Awsat that Syria had obtained the bombs from Iran and Russia during the 1990s, while at the same time verifying that the regime is using surface-to-surface missiles marked with the stamp of the “Egyptian National Organization for Military Production”. He added that “the information we have confirms that the Syrian regime used cluster bombs for the first time in November, specifically in the areas of Rastan and Jabal al-Zawiya in Idlib province. In recent times they have become more widely used, for example they were reported in Daraa and Rastan yesterday”. The officer explained that “the regime initially sought to use these bombs in areas that were difficult for its artillery to reach. As for today, there are fewer obstacles preventing them from being used, although they often need to be dropped from Sukhoi or MiG 21 aircraft, the former which can drop 7 or 8 bombs, the latter of which can drop two. Each bomb consists of around 900 smaller explosive fragments, with one fragment alone capable of killing two people”.
The officer believes that the regime has possessed a large arsenal of such munitions for decades, and that some of them are now obsolete. He pointed out that al-Assad possesses enough to “wipe out Syria” and does not need to get hold of any more, adding that the regime these days is relying on low-cost weaponry as much as possible, and therefore has resorted to using barrels of “TNT”, cluster bombs and what are known as thermobaric explosives.
Furthermore, the officer indicated that “the regime also used chemical weapons in small quantities in the region of Rastan at the end of 2011, through the sewage system. This led to cases of suffocation among citizens”. In a similar vein, the officer confirmed the deaths of 6 FSA elements 15 days ago as a result of a chemical weapon attack in Duma, after they had succeeded in capturing the headquarters of the al-Ishara battalion. According to the officer, the FSA elements had entered the headquarters to examine the interior and subsequently suffered convulsions and severe breathing problems. They died within a few hours, and these are the symptoms of a chemical attack.
In its recent report, HRW states: “Evidence indicates that Syrian forces used BM-21 Grad multi-barrel rocket launchers to deliver cluster munitions in attacks near the city of Idlib in December 2012 and in Latamneh, a town northwest of Hama, on January 3, 2013”. These rocket launchers are mounted onto a truck and are capable of firing 40 shells nearly simultaneously, at a distance of up to 40 kilometers.
The report goes on to say that “On December 12, an international journalist visited an uninhabited forested area outside the village of Banin in Jabal al-Zaweya, where she photographed cluster munition remnants and the remnants of ground-launched rockets used in an attack on December 5”. HRW also reports that “a fighter for the armed opposition group the Free Syrian Army was killed on December 5 after handling an unexploded submunition”.
HRW’s report is based on interviews with witnesses, videos posted online and photographs taken by an international journalist. The organization yesterday reiterated its call for the regime’s troops to “immediately cease all use of cluster munitions, which have been comprehensively banned by 111 nations through an international treaty”.