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Syria
Cluster Munition Ban Policy
The Syrian Arab Republic has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
Syria has never made a public statement detailing its position on cluster munitions. Syria did not participate in the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions and has never attended any of the regional or international meetings held on cluster munitions.
Syria is not a party to the Mine Ban Treaty or the Convention on Conventional Weapons.
Campaigners in Syria have undertaken several activities in support of the Convention on Cluster Munitions.[1]
Syria is not known to have produced or used cluster munitions, but does have a stockpile of the weapons. Jane’s Information Group lists Syria as possessing KMG-U dispensers, RBK-250, RBK-275, and RBK-500 cluster bombs.[2] It also possesses Grad 122mm rockets, which may include versions with submunition payloads.[3] It is not known if Syria was the source for Chinese Type-81 122mm cluster munition rockets fired by Hezbollah into northern Israel from southern Lebanon in July–August 2006.
Israel reportedly used air-dropped cluster munitions against Palestinian camps near Damascus, Syria, in 1973. [4]
Cluster Munition Remnants
The Golan Heights is contaminated with unexploded ordnance, including unexploded submunitions, but the precise extent of the problem is not known. In 2009, UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) explosive ordnance disposal personnel destroyed a variety of items including four unexploded submunitions.[5]
[1] Campaigners undertook several activities to welcome the convention’s 1 August 2010 entry into force, including media outreach, a drumming event, and a meeting with the Secretary General of the Arab Inter-Parliamentary Union. An “Introduction on CCM for parliamentarians” publication by Dr. Ghassan Shahrour, ANROLM was distributed to parliaments of 22 states comprising the Arab Inter-Parliamentary Union. CMC, “Entry into force of the Convention on Cluster Munitions Report: 1 August 2010,” November 2010, p. 27.
[2] Robert Hewson, ed., Jane’s Air-Launched Weapons, Issue 44 (Surrey, UK: Jane’s Information Group Limited, 2004), p. 846.
[3] International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 2005–2011 (London: Routledge, 2011), p. 331.
[4] Anthony H. Cordesman and Abraham R. Wagner, Lessons of Modern War Volume 1: The Arab Israeli Conflicts, 1973–1989 (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1990), p. 98.
[5] Email from Col. Tadeucz Bicz, Acting Chief of Staff, UNDOF, 22 February 2010.
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