Wings Over Iraq

cjchivers:

On the At War blog, fresh documentation of the use of yet another type of cluster bomb in the recent war in Libya.

Before being grounded by the arrival of allied warplanes, the Libyan Arab Republic Air Force dropped PTAB-2.5M anti-armor submunitions along a highway outside of Ajdabiya, according to recent finds of the submunitions and of an RBK-250 air-delivered dispenser by Mines Advisory Group, one of the independent NGO’s at work helping to remove Libya’s explosive remnants of war. For more, see the NYT report.

The discovery adds to the list of cluster bombs used by pro-Qaddafi forces on Libya’s people and their land.

MAG and other NGOS, working with the Joint Mine Action Coordination Team-Libya, have been surveying the country and prioritizing the work. Many Libyans have been helping the effort. The NGOs have made headway, but there is still much to do.

Do not think that pro-Qaddafi forces alone were responsible for the hazards that remain. Although the evidence thus far indicates that only the loyalists dropped or fired cluster munitions in the war, this does not mean other combatants have not left explosive munitions behind. Anti-Qaddafi forces also used landmines, and often fired rockets with high-explosive warheads indiscriminately into civilian areas.

Moreover, the de-miners in Libya still wait for NATO to provide details of the alliance’s air-dropped duds. The Joint Mine Action Coordination Team has been asking NATO for the information for months. So far the alliance, while repeatedly insisting to all enquirers that it has been transparent as it can be, has provided nothing — leaving Libyans and the de-miners (who risk their lives to help them) to find and deal with NATO’s duds themselves.

ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPHS

Top, exploded case of PTAB-2.5M. By MAG. Across the bottom rows, views of the canisters that release a variety of Soviet-designed submunitions, and of unexploded PTAB’s. (Know your weapons.)