CAIRO: A pair of videos posted online by a user believed to be a Syrian activist on July 10, 2012, appear to show cluster munition remnants, Human Rights Watch said today. The images include Soviet-produced unexploded submunitions and a bomb canister, apparently found in Jabal Shahshabu, a mountainous area near Hama. An activist in the area told Human Rights Watch that the region where the cluster remnants were allegedly found has been under sustained bombardment by Syrian forces over the past two weeks. “These videos show identifiable cluster bombs and submunitions," said Steve Goose, Arms Division director at Human Rights Watch. “If confirmed, this would be the first documented use of these highly dangerous weapons by the Syrian armed forces during the conflict." Arms experts from Human Rights Watch and the Geneva International Center for Humanitarian Demining said that one video shows the remnants of a RBK-250 series cluster bomb canister, while the second shows at least unexploded 15 AO-1Sch submunitions, small fragmentation bomblets that are delivered by RBK bombs. Both the RBK cluster bomb and AO-1Sch submunitions are Soviet-made. The RBK-250 series cluster bomb can only be delivered from a warplane because of its size and the speed necessary for its submunitions to be deployed correctly. A second, larger, explosive submunition also appears in one of the videos, and most likely is a Soviet-produced PTAB-series anti-tank submunition, which would indicate that multiple bombs were dropped during the incident, Human Rights Watch said. Cluster munitions have been used in more than 30 countries since the end of World War II, including in Iraq, Israel, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Syria, as well as in Western Sahara. Lebanon was only the second state from the Middle East and North Africa region to ratify the Convention on Cluster Munitions, following Tunisia on September 28, 2010. Iraq has signed, but not yet ratified.
