Villages 'Carpeted' With Cluster Bombs
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British mine clearance experts have accused Israel of "carpeting" Lebanese border villages with deadly cluster bombs, claiming that more appeared to have been used than in the American-led invasion of Iraq.

The Mines Advisory Group (MAG), a Manchester-based charity working in the Southern Lebanese city of Nabatieh, said "extreme" quantities of cluster bombs had been dropped on scores of surrounding villages during the final days of the conflict.

...Although the American-based campaign group, Human Rights Watch (HRW), argues that their use in civilian areas breaks a legal ban on indiscriminate attacks. "Cluster munitions are unacceptably inaccurate and unreliable weapons when used around civilians," said Kenneth Roth, HRW's executive director.

"They should never be used in populated areas." Chris Clark, the head of the United Nations weapons clearance team in Southern Lebanon, said the cluster bombs found were contained in artillery shells and had not been dropped by aircraft.

...Sean Sutton, of MAG, said Israel appeared to have used even more cluster bombs than America during the invasion of Iraq...Tactics widely criticised at the time by human rights groups.

"The contamination is incredibly widespread. I have never seen anything like it," he told the Sunday Telegraph. "In Iraq they were used mainly in rural areas and in some villages, but nothing like as much as they have been here."

"We have visited about 30 or 40 villages in the Nabatieh region, and I would say that about 50 per cent of them have been carpeted by cluster bombs, often with one lying every few meters. We have found them on peoples' doorsteps, in school playgrounds, and even in the front room of an old lady's house."

Both American-made cluster bombs and Israeli-manufactured copies had been found, he said. "They are essentially anti-personnel devices..." [1]


Israel Bombed 170 Sites In Lebanon:
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Israel dropped cluster bombs on at least 170 villages and other places in Southern Lebanon during its 34 day war with Hezbollah...The bomblets that failed to explode are now a deadly trap for civilians...Said Tekimiti Gilbert, operations chief of the UN Mine Action Coordination Centre in Lebanon.

"Up to now there are 170 confirmed cluster bomb strikes in Southern Lebanon," he said in the Southern port of Tyre.

"It's a huge problem. There are obvious dangers with children, people, cars. People are tripping over these things." Gilbert said.

He had "no doubt" that Israel had deliberately hit built-up areas with cluster bombs, in violation of international law which states that such munitions must not be used in areas where there are civilians."

"These cluster bombs were dropped in the middle of villages," he said.

...Gilbert said six assessment teams had been finding 30 new cluster bomb sites a day, mostly south of the Litani River, about 20km from Israel's border. Larger numbers had also been found further north, around Nabatieh and Hasbaya. [2]


Israel Leaves Behind 100,000 Unexploded Bombs:
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UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland said some of the bombs fired by Israeli forces in the last days of the war were made in the United States and urged Washington to talk to the Jewish state to stem the flow of the deadly arms.

"I hope the US will talk to the Israelis on that," Egeland told a news conference. "It's an outrage that we have 100,000 unexploded bombs among where children, women, civilians, shop keepers and farmers are now going to tread."

Egeland criticized Israel for firing nearly all of the cluster bombs during the last three days of its month-long war with Lebanon's Hezbollah.

"What's shocking and completely immoral is that 90 percent of the cluster bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the conflict, when we knew there would be a resolution and an end of this," Egeland said.

He said the UN Mine Action Coordination Center had assessed "Nearly 85 per cent of bombed areas in South Lebanon and identified 359 separate cluster bomb strike locations that are contaminated with as many as 100,000 unexploded bomblets." [3]


A Decade To Clear Cluster Bombs In Lebanon:
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Clearing unexploded cluster bombs used by Israel in Lebanon during the month-long war, many of them U.S.-manufactured, could take 10 years, a British-based demining group said on Friday.

"We will be clearing unexploded cluster munitions from the rubble of the villages of Southern Lebanon for another decade," said Simon Conway, director of Land Mine Action. "That is the grim reality," he told reporters in Geneva.

Before the recent war between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas in the south, demining teams were still clearing unexploded cluster munitions from Israel's 1978 and 1982 incursions into Lebanon, according to the advocacy group...

"My understanding from the people I have spoken to in Lebanon is that the scale of cluster munition contamination is much greater than was seen in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq," said Conway.

...Three types of artillery-delivered cluster bombs were used by Israel in Lebanon--Two U.S.-made (M42 and M77) and one Israeli (M85), each roughly the same failure rate of 40 percent, he said.

So far, the United Nations has found 400 strike sites where cluster bombs--"A lot of them U.S.-manufactured"--Were used, said David Shearer, U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Lebanon.

..."Currently one person per day is being killed and three people per day are being injured by ordnance of all types," Shearer told reporters. [4]


Sources:

1. Colin Freeman, the Sunday Telegraph, 20/08/2006
http://telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/08/20/wmid320.xml

2. ThePeninsulaQatar.com, 8/23/2006
http://thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=World_News&subsection=Gulf%2C+Middle+East+%26+Africa&month=August2006&file=World_News2006082322654.xml

3. ThePeninsualQatar.com, 8/31/2006
http://thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=World_News&subsection=Gulf%2C+Middle+East+%26+Africa&month=August2006&file=World_News2006083125541.xml

4. Stephanie Nebehay, Reuters News, Fri Sep 1, 2006 (Via Yahoo News):
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060901/ts_nm/lebanon_cluster_dc_1