KABUL, Afghanistan (Reuters) - The Red Cross has warned Afghan children not
to play with unexploded yellow cluster bomblets dropped on Afghanistan by
the United States last year that look a little like toys.
The bomblets were dropped in cluster bombs in an aerial campaign to help
U.S.-backed rebels overthrow Afghanistan's Islamist Taliban rulers.
According to UN Afghanistan is one of the top three most-mined countries on the planet. About 200,000 civilians have died and 400,000 have been disabled in mine incidents in Afghanistan. Approximately 6,000 more will lose their lives or limbs every year in the war battered country due to mine incidents, says a report issued by the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance to Afghanistan-mine clearance programme (UNOCHA). Afghanistan is infested with 10 Million anti-personnel mines ready to explode the moment anyone stepped on them.
In Afghanistan alone, about 20 innocent civilians including children and women, daily fall victim to mines, half of whom loss their lives due to lack of medical facilities. Due to the presence of mines, access has been denied to more than 488 square kilometer of land, including agricultural fields, irrigation canals roads and residential areas.
Over 30% mine victims in Afghanistan are children. The legacy of that long war also included 750,000 amputees
The UN figure for the number of Landmines in Afghanistan at 10 million. There are more than 600,000 landmines to be cleared while the warring factions are still laying more.
"The size and color of the bomblets are unfortunately very attractive,
especially to children," the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
said in a newsletter.
"Do not touch or play with them. As they are unstable, do not go near or
throw anything at them."
Cluster bombs dropped from the air contain hundreds of yellow bomblets. A
substantial number fail to explode when they reach the ground but they can
go off later at the slightest touch.
The Red Cross did not mention the United States by name, but said cluster
bombs were dropped on Afghanistan following the September 11 attacks on New
York and Washington blamed on the al Qaeda network of Islamic militant Osama
bin Laden.
The United States launched air strikes on Afghanistan to flush out bin Laden
and punish his Taliban protectors, who were swept from power in a matter of
weeks.
"Despite the recent scaling down in the conflict, Afghanistan remains one of
the most mine- and unexploded-ordnance-infested countries in the world,"
said the head of the ICRC in Afghanistan, Pierre Wettach.
"Millions of such devices are scattered over hundreds of square kilometers
of the country. This legacy of 23 years of conflict has a terrible impact on
the civilian population."
With no fixed front lines in the conflict, civilians were returning home and
taking risks to collect wood and tend their animals and crops, Wettach said.
He said mines and unexploded ordnance killed or wounded more than 100
Afghans a month. Some 70 percent of the victims are civilians and more than
10 percent are children under 14.
Between January and May a British mine-clearing group, the HALO Trust, said
it had cleared 16,000 mines and nearly 150,000 other unexploded explosives.
A loud explosion was heard early on Saturday to the northwest of Kabul
airport, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said. A patrol
was investigating.
Above the Law and Below Morality: Data on 11 Weeks of US Cluster-Bombing of Afghanistan
Cursor, Feb.1, 2002
Professor Marc W. Herold, Ph.D., M.B.A., B.Sc.
[ILLUSTRATION: 'shining like a diamond,' death comes in a little yellow soda can]
"SOME OF the most savage weapons of modern warfare." That’s how one BBC
journalist described cluster bombs, the U.S. military’s latest weapon of
choice in Afghanistan. It's also deadly and cheap.
POSTED FEBRUARY 1, 2002 -- On October 10th, 2001, U.S. B-52s and B-1s began dropping deadly 1,000 lb.
CBU-87 [$14,000 a bomb] and the wind-corrected CBU-103 cluster
[fragmentation] bombs upon "soft targets" [vehicles and people] in Afghanistan.
Eleven weeks later, U.S.planes had dropped 1,210 cluster bombs, each
containing 202 BLU-97 bomblets. The British Halo Trust now estimates on the
basis of groundwork in the vales of Afghanistan that 20% of the bomblets
failed to explode, meaning 48,884 yellow soda-can sized, yellow-colored
deadly sub-munitions now litter the villages, paths and fields of Afghanistan.
During the Kosovo air campaign, U.S. and allied planes dropped 1,392 cluster
bombs, with a reported fail rate of 8-12%. In the Gulf War, Allied forces
dropped 62,000 air-delivered cluster bombs. The British group, Landmine
Action, says that over 13 million bomblets were used in the 1991 Gulf War
and 1.2 million explosive duds cover Iraq and Kuwait. Pentagon estimates
suggest some 285 million such sub-munitions were dropped on Cambodia,
Vietnam, and Laos.
Tuesday, October 30th Day after heavy cluster bomb raid upon village of
Jebrael in western Herat which killed 12 persons, a child picks up a bomblet
and is killed.
Thursday, November 1st , One killed and one injured in Ishaq Sulaiman
village near Herat.
Tuesday, November 6th, in the Kharam border district of Pakistan, a
shepherd, Mohammed Esa, picks up a strange object which explodes, injuring him.
Wednesday, November 7th, One civilian is killed and another injured by an
unexploded cluster bomblet in the village of Ishaq Sulaiman Zai, near Herat.
Saturday, November 17th, village of Charikari, near Khanabad/Kunduz heavily
cluster-bombed.
Wednesday,November 21st, Twelve year old Mohibollah was seriously maimed --
his face splattered in blood and a stump of flesh, smashed bones and mangled
fingers dangling from his left arm---when a cluster bomblet [dropped on
October 22nd ] exploded as he was gathering firewood in the poor
neighborhood of Qali-e-Shater on the outskirts of Herat.
Sunday, November 25th, Kalakhan village 12 miles north of Kabul. A farmer,
Gholam Khader, 45, returns to his village at 7 a.m. and is killed as he
walks on one of the CBU-87's 202 bomblets. Another is injured.25 A de-mining
crew found 40 BLU-97 bomblets there on November 26th.
Sunday, November 25th, One killed and one injured in Qarabagh, a front-line
town heavily bombed by B-52s on November 9-10. The village of Denar Kheil
was heavily cluster-bombed too.
Tuesday, November 27th, village of Qala Shatar near Herat, a 12-year-old boy
picks up the bright yellow soda-can sized bomblet, loses his arm. A second
8-year-old boy is injured. The boys were walking to school. Earlier, one
civilian was killed and another injured in the village of Ishaq Sulaiman
after picking up a cluster bomblet.
Tuesday, November 27th, village of Zar Karez north of the Kandahar-Pakistan
highway. A cluster bomb falls upon a semi-nomadic village, injuring two
severely.
Tuesaday, November 27th, Shamshad village in Nangarhar province. Three
children were killed and seven were injured when a cluster bomblet exploded
as the children were scavenging through heaps of scrap iron to sell to
vendors. Shamshad had been heavily hit by U.S. planes on November 18-19th,
killing ~40 villagers.
December 3rd, village of Mengchuqur in northern Tokhar province. Islamudin,
20, is blown up when he picks up an unexploded cluster bomb. He had just
returned, having fled in 1998. On his first day home, he had gone out to
look at what remained of his sister's house and spotted a bright metal
object.
December 7th, village of Sakhsalmun, 4 kms. outside Herat. One boy was
killed and one injured, Abul Nasir aged 14, when they played with a cluster
bomb.
December, village of Rabat west of Herat. The bomblets dropped in early
November scattered in an area more than 1.6 kms away from a Taliban base.
Three children injured when picking up cluster bomb, on their way to a
wedding. Farmers are killed in areas they try to begin planting wheat and
tending to vineyards.
Late December. In a refugee camp in Herat, two children [aged 9 and 10] are
killed and 2 others injured when they are collecting firewood and a BLU-97
bomblet explodes.
Jan. 1-21. Mazar-i-Sharif area. The Halo Trust reports that seven children
have been killed while playing with bomblets in a village near Mazar.
A favorite U.S. weapon used in Afghanistan has been the 1,000 lb CBU-87
cluster bomb with its 202 BLU-97 bomblets. The BLU-97 cluster bomblet is one
of the cheapest air-delivered weapons available, costing only ~$60 per unit.
Unlike most American mines, cluster bomblets are not designed to break down
over time as this would raise their low cost.3A single BLU-97 bomblet kills
anyone within a 50 meter radius and severely injures a person within 100
meters. It is considered more dangerous than a conventional land mine. Peter
Le Sueur, technical adviser to the UN's Mine Action Program Afghanistan
[MAPA] describes this weapon,
"the BLU 97 had three purposes -- to destroy armoured vehicles, kill people
with shrapnel fragments and ignite fires in military targets such as
munition dumps or oil depots."
According to Le Sueur, one of its most savage features is its six-millimetre
diamond-patterned steel jacket. "When the bomb explodes, the steel splits so
you get hundreds of high-velocity steel fragments travelling at the speed of
a rifle bullet. "They can kill or injure people from over 100 metres (330
feet) from the point of detonation".3
On New Year's Day, 2002, the United Nations' UNIC Director Eric Falt
disclosed that U.S. planes had dropped cluster bombs in 103 cities of
Afghanistan and possibly in another 25.5 The areas around Herat, the Shomali
Plain and Tora Bora were particularly hard hit with cluster bombs. More than
600 cluster-bombs were dropped by U.S. planes in the Shomali plain region
alone during the five weeks the U.S. planes pounded Taliban positions.6
The villages of Denar Kheil, Kalakhan and Qarabagh were particularly hard
hit, being covered by BLU-97s. Early on November 10, 2001, CBU-87 bombs were
dropped upon Denar Kheil in the Shomali Plain. Between January 9 - 20th , a
de-mining team found 100 active BLU-97 bomblets in the village.7 It is
believed that snow, sand and mud in Afghanistan make it even more likely
that the bomblets are not exploding [hence the higher reported dud rate].
The CBU-87, 1,000 lb. bomb was developed by the Aerojet General Corporation
in 1983 [entering service in 1986 replacing Vietnam era cluster bombs] which
produced it along with the Alliant Techsystems Inc. [Hopkins, Minnesota].
Today, the CBU-87s are assembled in an Army factory in southern Kansas, from
parts supplied by Honeywell [Minnesota] and Aerojet [Sacramento, California].
The 'mother bomb' carries 202 bright yellow bomblets, each the size of a
soda can (see photo). The mother bomb explodes about 300-400 feet above
earth and the 202 bomblets are dispersed with little parachutes. They are
supposed to explode upon landing, but at least 5% do not. [] The CBU-87's
'footprint' is about 400x800 meters. Each bomblet, in turn, fragments into
300 steel fragments, making for a total of 60,600 fragments per CBU-87 bomb.
One CBU-87 spreads bomblets over about three football fields. One B1-B
'Lancer' bomber can carry 30 CBU-87 bombs.8 A B-52 carries 40 CBU-87s, with
a total hence of 8,080 BLU-97 cluster bomblets!
Cluster bombs are anti-vehicle and anti-personnel weapons. They kill people
without destroying property. They also serve as land mines and detonate
later, even years later, when they are unearthed. The Times noted that the
U.S. lobbied at a landmine conference some years ago against classifying
cluster bombs as landmines.9 But they serve this secondary and murderous
purpose: "35,000 unexploded bomblets in Kosovo still kill one person a
week," the paper noted. They are still killing people in Laos, 30 years
after the war there ended: 30 years after being dropped from U.S. planes,
one Laotian a month dies of a cluster bomblet.10
Nazeer Ahmad, de-miner for the Organization for Mine Clearance and Afghan
Rehabilitation [OMAR] based in Jalalabad, says,
"We completely forgot about the Russian bombs and mines when we saw American
cluster bombs. They are horrible things. Nobody knows how to detect them and
nobody knows how to destroy them. In Herat when Americans dropped cluster
bombs, there were little bomblets that were yellow color. Children thought
they might be food. Thirty have been killed and 25 wounded by cluster
bombs."11
Suzanne Goldenberg reports from Herat that at least 41 persons have been
killed and 46 injured by cluster bombs in the area since the bombing
ceased.12 Farnaz Fassihi reported for the Newhouse News Service in late
December how "at the Wazir Akbar Khan Hospital in Kabul, all the beds in the
children's ward are occupied by youngsters injured by cluster bomblets."13
As Mark Baker writes, the terror began just after midnight on October 22nd
in Shaker Qala when villagers were awakened from their sleep by the sound of
aircraft . Moments later bombs were raining down. Two hours later, eight
people had perished, dozens were wounded. Villagers scrambled from their
homes, putting the wounded on carts to take them to Herat's hospital four
kilometers away. A new danger lurked in the guise of yellow soda cans
scattered through the village's narrow lanes and adjacent fields.
The first victim of an unexploded cluster bomb was blown up in Shakar Qala,
outside Herat:
"The UN confirmed that eight people had been killed immediately in the
attack on Shakar Qala, and a ninth had died after picking up the parachutes
attached to the bombs."
“He went to look at the object, touched it and it blew up,” Stephanie
Bunker, a spokeswoman, said. Fourteen others were injured and 20 of the
village’s 45 houses were destroyed or badly damaged.."15
The attack upon Shakar Qala reportedly scattered 200 pieces of unexploded
ordnance across the village.
On Wednesday, November 21st, twelve-year old Mohibollah was out collecting
firewood in a shabby neighborhood on the edge of Herat. Minutes later, he
was running down the street screaming, his face splattered with blood. A
stump of flesh, smashed bones and mangled fingers dangled from his left arm.
He was a victim of the legacy of a Monday night bombing attack on October
22nd, when U.S. planes dropped cluster bombs upon the village of
Qali-e-Shater [Shakar Qala], two miles northeast of Herat.
The attack itself killed eight immediately with a ninth dying from an
unexploded bomblet the next day. The U.S. attack also destroyed 30 of the
hamlet's 45 homes. The intended target was a Taliban base two kilometers
away. A resident, Abodolahad, recounted how eight bomblets landed on his
house, peppering the walls with shrapnel and killing his brother. But four
of the bomblets failed to explode, forcing the family out to live with
neighbors. Another recent report describes the cluster-bombing of Qala
Shater village:
"At least six of the bomblets parachuted to earth in the narrow passageway
linking the Farid family compound to the road, bursting through a mudwall
and gouging out chunks of plaster from the main home. One family member
died, two teen-aged neighbors were killed, and two unexploded bomblets
remained behind.
At first, the family waited, and then they decided to try their luck. A
friend of Ahmed Farid, 26, after trying defusing techniques, decided to hurl
a bomblet into the courtyard of an abandoned home next door. Unfortunately,
Ahmed was crossing the courtyard. Fiery bits of shrapnel burnt a series of
almond-sized scars from right shoulder to calf, and put the iron worker in
the hospital for two days…"17
Since the bombing, 12 more civilians have died. Rains in mid-January have
washed cluster bomblets downstream. And more than a month later, the United
Nations Mine Action local staff reported completing the destruction of
cluster bombs in 54 homes and a mosque in the village of Qali-e-Shater.18
On December 7th, in Sakhsalmun, a village about four kilometers outside
Herat, it was a family's visit to a relative's home.19 The kids didn't want
to stay inside listening to grown-up talk and raced outside. Abdul Nasir,
14, and others scrambled up the hillside next to the hamlet. They came
across the little yellow soda can with a parachute attached to it. One boy
picked it up and it went off. His body was shredded. Abdul Nasir was
comparatively lucky: his jaw was badly broken and one of his hands sliced
between his two middle fingers. In early December, he sat in the surgical
ward at the Herat Red Cross Hospital. U.S. planes had cluster-bombed
Sakhsalmun earlier, close to a former Taliban garrison, and four civilians
had been killed by U.S. bombs which missed their target.
According to official data of the local de-mining organizations and the
regional hospital in Herat, 38 deaths and an unknown number of injured
people due to cluster bombs have been registered. However, some doctors at
the Herat regional hospital in January 2002, believe this number is much
higher. In the village of Qala Shakar near Herat city alone, 12 people died
and more than 20 were injured due to cluster bombs.20 In the village of
Rabat, 1/2 hour west of Herat, 10 civilians have died since U.S. bombing
ceased in early November.
More than 10 Afghans are killed or injured each day from unexploded
ordnance. And nearly one out of 10 families has a member who has been
disabled by mines or other unexploded ordnance. The situation is magnified
insofar as the location of such unexploded munitions:
"At present, almost half of the 725 square kilometers of land identified as
minefields is concentrated in the urban areas where Afghans live, or in the
small percentage of Afghanistan's fertile land where Afghans raise crops or
livestock."31
A case in point is the village of Shaker Qala, where for many days villagers
remained cloistered inside their homes fearing to emerge because of cluster
bombs scattered through the entire village. Farmers returning to regions
around Herat and in the once fertile Shomali plain [wheat and orchards] have
been particularly vulnerable to unexploded cluster bomblets.
Widely decried by over 50 humanitarian and medical groups across the world,
the U.S. defends its use of cluster bombs as an appropriate response to the
killings at the World Trade Center. The French Nobel-prize [1999] winning
organization, Doctors Without Borders, finds cluster bombs being
indiscriminate weapons and based upon the provisions in the Geneva Protocol
their use is thus prohibited [Additional Protocol I, Art. 51, 4 and 5b]. The
International Red Cross called for an international ban on cluster bombs in
September 2000.33
The casing of a CBU-87 bomb found in Tora Bora had a hand-stenciled note on
it, "this is gonna shine like a diamond in a goat's ass - Gary."34
Is the United States above international humanitarian law and below the
standards of international morality?
Source: Jonathan Marcus, "Analysis: Why Use Cluster Bombs?" BBC News Online
[August 2, 2000].
1 data from United Nations Mine Action Programme in Afghanistan, reported in
Naveed Ahmad, "Coalition Provides Information About Sub-Munitions in Struck
Areas," Daily Jang [December 22, 2001], also reported in Asia Times [January
3, 2002]. See also the report by Human Rights Watch, "Cluster Bombs Litter
Afghanistan" [New York: Human Rights Watch, November 16, 2001] and Naveed
Ahmad, "UN to Clear 103 Afghan Cities of Cluster Bombs," Daily Jang [January
2, 2002].
2 Scott Canon, "Leftover Bomblets Leave Big Questions. Are Cluster Bombs
Necessary or Unethical?" Pittsburgh Post-Gazette [November 4, 2001]: A12.
3 "Taliban Appeal Against US' Use of Cluster Bombs," Hindustan Times
[October 26, 2001].
4 from Mike Williams, "Bomb Damage at Tora Bora Shows Ferocity of
U.S.Response," Cox News [December 12, 2001].
5 "Cluster Bombs Dropped in 103 Afghan Cities," Paknews.com January 1, 2002.
6 Carol J. Williams, "Work to Root Out a Buried Foe Gains Urgency in
Afghanistan," Los Angeles Times [December 24, 2001].
7 Elizabeth Neuffer, "Fighting Terror After the Battle. Unexploded Bomblets
Mine Villages," Boston Globe [January 20, 2002]: A23.
8 www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/dumb/cbu-87.htm ; and "Members Fight for Guns
and Butter," Washington Post [May 1, 1990]; and Paul Watson and Lisa Getter,
"Silent Peril Lies in Wait for Afghanistan's People," Los Angeles Times
[December 1, 2001].
9 Simon Jenkins, "Cluster Bombs: These Are Land Mines by Any Other Name,"
The Times [October 26, 2001]. On Laos, see Matt Warren, "Afghanistan Set to
Share Legacy of Death That Cluster-Bombing Left in Indochina," The Scotsman
[November 5, 2001], at : www.zmag.org/warrencluster.htm . See also Titus
Peachey and Virgil Wiebe, "Appendix 1: Laos. The Air War" [Mennonite Central
Committee, November 2000], at
www.mcc.org/clusterbomb/report/laos_appendix.html
10 from Heather Cottin, "What Kind of War is This? A Murder of Innocents and
a Plunder of Resources" {New York: International Action Center, no date].
11 Scott Baldauf, "Help for Survivors of Afghanistan's Land Mines,"
Christian Science Monitor [January 4, 2002]
12 Suzanne Goldenberg, "Long After the Air Raids, Bomblets Bring More
Death," The Guardian [January 28, 2002].
13 Farnaz Fassihi, "At Every Step on Afghan Soil, Death Lurks Underneath,"
Newhouse Newsw Serevice [December 28, 2001].
14 Mark Baker, "If the Cluster Bombs Don't Get You, the Mines Might," Sydney
Morning Herald [October 26, 2001].
15 from Landmine Action News, "Cluster Bombs Are New Dangers toMine
Clearers," [October 26, 2001].
16 Jon Hemming, Reuters, "Unexploded Cluster Bomb Maims Afghan Boy," The
Hindustan Times [November 21, 2001].
17 Goldenberg,op. cit.
18 "Landmine Kills 2 Children in Heart: UN," Dawn [November 30, 2001].
19 from Hamish McDonald, "Death Comes in a Little Yellow Package," Sydney
Morning Herald [December 17, 2001].
20 Medecins Sans Frontieres, "Cluster Bombs the Legacy to Afghan
Population," Relief Web [January 18, 2002]
21 "Air Strikes Continue, U.S.TakesOer Airaves," Times of India [October 31,
2001].
22 UN Integrated Regional Information Network, "Afghanistan: Focus on the
Risk of Unexploded Ordnance," November 7, 2001.
23 The after-effects of cluster-bombing are well-captured in C.J. Chiers,
"An Afghan Village Where Errant Bombs Fell and Killed, and Still Lurk in
Wait," New York Times [December 12, 2001].
24 Jon Hemming [Reuters], "Unexploded Cluster Bomb Maims Afghan Boy,"
Hindustan Times [November 21, 2001].
25 P. Watson and L. Getter, "Weapons: Unexploded Bomblets' Toll on Civilians
Has Renewed Controversy Over Their Use," Los Angeles Times [December 1, 2001].
26 "Three Afghan Children Die in Cluster Bomb Explosion," Out There
News/AUSAF [November 27, 2001].
27 Anna Badkhen, "Unexploded Bombs Ticking for Children," San Francisco
Chronicle [December 3, 2001]: A1.
28 Hamish McDonald, "The War is Over, But the Loss of Innocents Continues,"
The Age [December 17, 2001].
29 Goldenberg, op. cit.
30 Elizabeth Neuffer, op. cit.
31 Baldauf, op. cit.
32 Richard Beeston and Helen Rumbelow, "Allies Defend Cluster Bombs," The
Times [October 29, 2001].
33 Alexander G. Higgins, "Red Cross Urges Cluster Bomb Halt," The Associated
Press [September 5, 2000]. Other groups are engaged in a campaign to ban
cluster bombs, see "Campaign Targets 'Lethal' Cluster Bombs," BBC News
Online [December 2, 2001].
34 from Mike Williams, "Bomb Damage at Tora Bora Shows Ferocity of
U.S.Response," Cox News [December 12, 2001].
