Citaat:
Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door julian
Onzin. Ge doet zelfs niet de moeite om enige kennnis over militaire operaties te verwerven.
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The United States-led alliance began its air campaign in Afghanistan on October 7, 2001. While the Pentagon has been reluctant to talk of specific weapons used in the bombing, U.S. military sources have told Human Rights Watch that the Air Force began dropping cluster bombs within a matter of days. During the first week of the campaign, it is believed that Air Force B-1 bombers dropped 50 CBU-87 cluster bombs in some five missions. CBU-87 cluster bomb use has continued after the first week, and it is believed that other airplanes joined B-1s in dropping cluster bombs on both fixed and mobile targets.
Human Rights Watch has called for a global moratorium on use of cluster bombs because they have been shown to cause unacceptable civilian casualties both during and after conflict. Cluster bombs have a wide dispersal pattern and cannot be targeted precisely, making them especially dangerous when used near civilian areas. Cluster bombs are usually used in very large numbers and have a high initial failure rate which results in numerous explosive "duds" that pose the same post-conflict problem as antipersonnel landmines._ _United Nations officials have stated that on October 22 U.S. cluster bomb submunitions landed on the village of Shaker Qala, near the city of Herat in western Afghanistan, killing nine civilians and injuring fourteen. The head of the United Nations Mine Action Program in Afghanistan (U.N. MAPA) noted that villagers are afraid to leave their homes after encountering the yellow soda can-like objects characteristic of CBU-87 submunitions that were left scattered in the village after an air strike on a nearby military camp. He called upon the United States to provide information on the types of ordnance dropped on Shaker Qala and elsewhere.
On October 25, the U.S. for the first time publicly acknowledged using cluster bombs. In response to a media question, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers said, "Yes, we have used cluster bomb units. There have not been a great number of them used, but they have been used."
Each CBU-87 cluster bomb contains 202 individual submunitions, also called "bomblets," designated BLU-97/B. The CBU-87s are formally known as Combined Effects Munitions (CEM) because each bomblet has an antitank and antipersonnel effect, as well as an incendiary capability. The bomblets from each CBU-87 are typically distributed over an area roughly 100 x 50 meters. They can be dropped from virtually any U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps aircraft.
Recent experience in Kosovo, and before that in the Gulf War, has shown that the exact "footprint," or landing area, of the CBU-87's bomblets is difficult to control and that an initial failure-to-explode rate of some 7 percent can be expected.