Islamic State (Isis), Syrian government forces, both sides in the conflict in eastern Ukraine and Saudi jets attacking targets in Yemen have all used cluster bombs and rockets banned by international treaty, according to an authoritative new report.

Sudan’s armed forces have used cluster bombs and the devices have also been dropped on targets in Libya, it says.

British-made Tornado GR4 and Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft belonging to the Saudi air force have been deployed in attacks against Houthi rebel forces in Yemen, but it is not known whether they were armed with cluster bombs.

The Ministry of Defence said in June that Britain had provided “precision-guided weapons” to the Saudi air force. It said: “The use of of these weapons is a matter for the Saudis, but we are assured that they will be used in compliance in international law.”

Cluster bombs scatter bomblets over a wide area and many do not explode on impact, but kill and maim civilians long after the initial bombing raids. Civilians accounted for 92% of all recorded casualties, half of whom were children, in 2010-2014. The bombs were banned in international law by a 2008 treaty that has been signed by more than 100 countries.

According to Thursday’s report by the Cluster Munition Coalition, global casualties of cluster bombs to date exceed 55,000, with the largest number of confirmed casualties recorded in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and Laos. There have been more casualties in Laos than any other country, a legacy of massive US cluster bomb strikes during the Vietnam war more than four decades ago.

As well as the Saudi attacks on targets in Yemen, Syrian government forces began using air-dropped cluster bombs in mid-2012 and are still firing cluster munition rockets, while Isis forces used cluster munition rockets in the second half of 2014, the report says.

Ukrainian government forces and Russian-backed anti-government forces used cluster munition rockets in Donetsk and Luhansk provinces of eastern Ukraine, in attacks that started in 2014 and stopped after a February 2015 ceasefire, according to the report.

Cluster bombs were dropped on two locations in Libya in early 2015, but it was not possible to determine who was responsible, and Sudan’s armed forces used air-dropped cluster bombs in South Kordofan province in the first half of 2015 and previously in 2012, says the report.

“More countries are embracing the ban on cluster munitions by joining the treaty and rapidly destroying their stocks – evidence that the treaty is working well five years on,” said Mary Wareham of Human Rights Watch.

“The new use of cluster munitions by a handful of armed forces outside the ban has been met with swift and strong condemnations, showing the stigma against their use is growing stronger.”

Though a US official last month said his country was aware that Saudi Arabia has used cluster munitions in Yemen, the UK’s cautious attitude was criticised by campaigners.

“The UK should condemn the use of cluster munitions in Yemen, just as it has condemned their use in Sudan, Syria and Ukraine this year,” said Thomas Nash, director of the UK-based weapons monitoring organisation Article 36.

“UK efforts to water down international condemnation of cluster bombs show a callous disregard for the human suffering caused by these weapons.”

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott was slammed by Jewish groups on Thursday after saying that Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria were worse than Nazis as they “boast about their evil”.

The Australian leader, who is considering extending Australia’s air campaign against IS in Iraq into Syria following a request by the United States, made the comments after describing the jihadist group’s actions as “unspeakable evil” and “medieval barbarity”.

“I mean, the Nazis did terrible evil but they had sufficient sense of shame to try to hide it. These people boast about their evil,” Abbott told Sydney commercial radio station 2GB.

“This is the extraordinary thing – they act in the way that medieval barbarians acted – only they broadcast it to the world with an effrontery which is hard to credit and it just adds a further dimension to this evil.”

His comments were criticised by the head of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry Robert Goot as “injudicious and unfortunate”.

Goot said in a statement that IS’s crimes were horrific but “cannot be compared to the systematic round-up of millions of people and their dispatch to purpose built death camps for mass murder”.

“Acts of terrorism are necessarily done in the full glare of publicity for their propaganda effect,” he added.

“In contrast, those responsible for ordering and implementing systematic state-sponsored genocide are high government officials who often operate in secret not out of any sense of shame, but to avoid being held criminally responsible for their actions.”

Abbott defended his remarks at a Melbourne press conference later and said he was “not in the business of trying to rank evil”.

“But I do make this point, that unlike previous evil-doers, whether we’re talking about Stalin, Hitler or whoever that tried to cover up their evil, this wretched death cult boasts about it,” he said.

“Every day we see new atrocities broadcast to the world, atrocities of an unspeakable inhumanity.

“And that’s why it’s absolutely vital that the decent people of the world unite against this death cult and do everything we reasonably can, as quickly as we can to disrupt, degrade and ultimately destroy (the group).”

Australia joined the US-led campaign against IS in Iraq last year, contributing military jets and special forces troops.

The government estimates that some 120 of its nationals are still fighting with IS in Iraq and Syria, while at least 30 have been killed. Another 160 sympathisers are believed to be supporting jihadists from home.

In response, Canberra has raised its terror threat alert level to high, introduced new national security laws and conducted several counter-terrorism raids.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday he was confident Middle East powers would send troops to help defeat the Islamic State group in Syria.

Washington has so far resisted suggestions it put US boots on the ground to add muscle to a year-old coalition air campaign aimed at breaking the jihadists’ grip on a swathe of Iraq and Syria.

But, in an interview with CNN, Kerry said he expected that when the time was right some of Syria’s neighbors would step up.

“We are talking about very specific ways to do that with other countries in the region,” he said.

“There will need to be people on the ground. I am convinced there will be at the appropriate moment,” he said.

“The president has made it very clear that American troops are not part of that equation,” he added.

“But I do know that there are others who are talking about it. There are people in the region who are capable of that.”

Kerry did not say which countries might be persuaded to take part in a ground operation, but the obvious candidates would be Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Arab countries.

Shortly after making his comments, Kerry met with his Saudi counterpart Adel al-Jubeir, on the eve of a three-day visit to Washington by Saudi Arabia’s King Salman.

Washington is in intense discussions with Saudi Arabia and Russia about ways to restart talks on a Syrian political transition that would see President Bashar al-Assad depart and placate moderate rebels.

But it remains determined to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the IS group, which has declared a so-called caliphate on its territory and has openly boasted of carrying out atrocities.

http://www.punchng.com/news/regional-powers-will-send-troops-to-syria-kerry/

DAILY MEDIA
MORNING EDITION
WEDNESDAY 2 SEPTEMBER 2015

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Islamic State militants have destroyed two of the most important temples in the UNESCO-listed Syrian city of Palmyra, as they press their campaign to wipe out some of the Middle East’s most important heritage sites.

The United Nations released satellite images Monday confirming the ancient city’s most famed shrine, the 2,000-year-old Temple of Bel, had been blown up a week after the destruction of the temple of Baal Shamin.

The jihadists have become notorious for demolishing archaeological treasures since declaring a “caliphate” last year straddling Iraq and Syria.

The following are examples of world cultural heritage targeted by Islamist extremists elsewhere:

Iraq 

IS has carried out a campaign of “cultural cleansing”, razing part of ancient Mesopotamia’s relics and looting others to sell valued artefacts on the black market.

In a video released by IS on February 26, militants were shown using sledgehammers to smash statues in the country’s second city Mosul, sparking global outrage.

According to antiquities officials, around 90 objects were destroyed or damaged, most of them originals.

Thousands of books and rare manuscripts were also burned in February in Mosul’s library.

In July 2014, IS rigged the Nabi Yunus shrine in the northern city of Mosul—revered by both Muslims and Christians as the tomb of the Prophet Jonah—with explosives and blew it up.

According to the Iraqi government, IS militants on March 5 bulldozed and blew up Nimrud, an ancient Assyrian city south of Mosul.

Libya 

Several mausoleums have been destroyed by Islamist extremists, who believe they go against their interpretation of Islam.

In August 2012, Islamist hardliners bulldozed part of the mausoleum of Al-Shaab Al-Dahman, close to the centre of the Libyan capital.

The demolition came a day after hardliners blew up the mausoleum of Sheikh Abdessalem al-Asmar in the western city of Zliten.

 Mali 

The fabled desert city of Timbuktu, named as the “City of 333 saints” and listed by UNESCO, was for months attacked by jihadists following a brutal version of Islamic law.

In June 2012, Al-Qaeda-linked militants destroyed 15 of the northern city’s mausoleums, important buildings that date back to the golden age of Timbuktu as an economic, intellectual and spiritual centre in the 15th and 16th centuries, UNESCO reported. Reconstruction started in 2014.

 Afghanistan 

In March 2001, Taliban leader Mullah Omar—now deceased—ordered the destruction of two 1,500-year-old Buddha statues in the eastern town of Bamiyan, because they were judged to be anti-Islamic.

Hundreds of members of the Taliban from across the country spent more than three weeks demolishing the gigantic statues carved into the side of a cliff.

In warning the Obama administration against warming ties with Iran as a way to defeat ISIS, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu took issue with what he saw as an emerging policy based off of the adage “my enemy’s enemy is my friend.”

“Iran is the Islamic Republic, and ISIS calls itself the Islamic State,” the Prime Minister said in March of this year. “In this case, the enemy of my enemy is not my friend, but my enemy.”

But that strategy could go arguably a step further, if former CIA Director David Petraeus has his way.

According to the Daily Beast, the former commander of US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan has been lobbying White House officials to embrace “moderate” elements of another major US foe: Al Qaeda.

ISIS famously broke of from Al Qaeda in 2014, after months of discord between ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri. The rival jihadi groups have since engaged in bloody fighting in Syria, where Al Qaeda’s Syrian branch, Al Nusra Front, has emerged as one of the most prominent rebel forces in the war against the Assad regime.

That animosity reached fever pitch recently, when one of ISIS’s official affiliates released a series of “Wanted Dead” posters offering rewards for killing several senior Al Qaeda leaders – including Zawahiri.

Patraeus is reportedly urging officials to reach out to elements within Nusra who are more “moderate” and help them defeat ISIS. In doing so he seems to be drawing a distinction between elements with the more locally-focused goal of overthrowing the Assad regime, and those looking to establish a base from which to attack the west, including the United States.

It comes as the US and its allies have struggled to find a solution to ISIS, helping to roll it back in some areas via an air campaign but failing thusfar to present a convincing plan for a decisive victory.

Patraeus’s plan is apparently drawing from his experience as commander in Iraq, where formerly hostile Sunni factions allied with US forces to defeat their common enemy – ISIS’s previous incarnation, Al Qaeda in Iraq. That strategy brought the jihadis to the brink of extinction, but critics will note that in the long-run, ISIS still emerged on top, today controlling the very areas which once served as strongholds for the US Army’s Sunni tribal allies.

But the plan is extremely controversial for other reasons as ell. Apart from the fact that both groups are proscribed terrorist organizations in the US, it is unclear whether such a distinction within Nusra’s ranks really exists on any meaningful level. Moreover, it is Al Qaeda, not ISIS which has carried out the bloodiest and most infamous terrorist attacks on US soil, most notably the 9/11 atrocity.

Unnamed US officials told the Daily Beast that while “direct links” with Nusra are “off the table,” they would not rule out working with other groups aligned with them.

Apart from anything else, however, it is far from clear that there would be any takers on the Syrian side, as there would be seemingly little to gain from allying with a lukewarm US administration with a track record of failing to provide sufficient support for its allies on the ground.

As one intelligence official said: “Groups that try to cater to both hardliners and the West could find themselves without any friends, having distanced themselves from groups like al Qaeda but still viewed as extremists by the moderate opposition and their supporters.”