Syria: Army Using New Type of Cluster Munition | Human Rights Watch

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  An unexploded DPICM submunition delivered by a 122mm rocket that was used in an attack near the village of Banin in Jabal Al Zaweya in December 2012.© 2012 Nicole Tung

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  The 122mm cluster munition rockets used in Syria bear the markings of the Egyptian state-owned Arab Organization for Industrialization and an Egyptian company called Sakr Factory for Development Industries. © 2012 Nicole Tung

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Additional background on cluster munitions

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Syria: Despite Denials, More Cluster Bomb Attacks

Syria: New Evidence Military Dropped Cluster Bombs

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.

 Steve Goose, arms division director 

(Washington, DC) – Syrian forces are using notoriously indiscriminate rockets that contain explosive submunitions. 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 are the first known instances of Syrian use of ground-based cluster munitions. No information is available on how or when Syria acquired these cluster munitions, which were made in Egypt. Human Rights Watch and others have previously reported use of air-dropped cluster bombs. The Syrian government should immediately cease all use of cluster munitions, which have been comprehensively banned by 111 nations through an international treaty.

“Syria is escalating and expanding its use of cluster munitions, despite international condemnation of its embrace of this banned weapon,” said Steve Goose, director of the Arms division at Human Rights Watch. “It is now resorting to a notoriously indiscriminate type of cluster munition that gravely threatens civilian populations.”
Based on interviews with witnesses, analysis of approximately a dozen videos posted online by local activists, and photographs taken by an international journalist, Human Rights Watch has concluded that since at least early December Syrian forces have used BM-21 Grad multi-barrel rocket launchers to deliver 122mm cluster munition rockets containing submunitions of the DPICM-type (dual purpose improved conventional munition).

The attack using these cluster munitions on January 3 on Latamneh killed one civilian man and wounded 15 people, including women and children, while another civilian man was killed by an unexploded submunition left from the attack. Another man, a fighter for the armed opposition group the Free Syrian Army, was killed on December 5 after handling an unexploded submunition left from an attack two days earlier on the village of Banin in Jabal al-Zaweya.

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