Five-Year Review: Non-signatory Saudi Arabia has never made a public statement elaborating its views on cluster munitions or position on accession to the convention. It has participated as an observer in all of the convention’s Meetings of States Parties, except in 2014.

Saudi Arabia is not known to have produced or exported cluster munitions, but it has acquired and stockpiles them. Saudi Arabia is leading a coalition of states that began attacking Ansar Allah (the Houthi) in Yemen on 25 March 2015, using two types of air-dropped cluster munitions in northern Saada governorate bordering Saudi Arabia. A Saudi military spokesman has acknowledged use of CBU-105 cluster munitions, although the United Arab Emirates (UAE) could also be responsible. A dozen states, as well as the president of the convention’s Fifth Meeting of States Parties, the ICRC, and the CMC have expressed concern or condemned the use of cluster munitions in Yemen.

Policy

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Saudi Arabia has never made a public statement elaborating its views on cluster munitions or position on accession to the convention. In April 2012, it informed the Monitor that “the Convention on Cluster Munitions is still under examination by the competent authorities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”[1]

Saudi Arabia participated in several meetings of the Oslo Process, including the Dublin negotiations in May 2008 as an observer.[2] Yet, Saudi Arabia did not attend the Convention on Cluster Munitions Signing Conference in Oslo in December 2008.

Saudi Arabia engages in the work of the Convention on Cluster Munitions despite not joining. It has participated as an observer in every Meeting of States Parties of the convention, except the Fifth Meeting of States Parties in San José, Costa Rica in September 2014. Saudi Arabia attended the convention’s intersessional meetings in Geneva once, in April 2014. It did not make any statements at these meetings.

Saudi Arabia has voted in favor of UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolutions condemning the use of cluster munitions in Syria, including Resolution 69/189 on 18 December 2014, which expressed “outrage” at the continued use.[3] It has voted in favor of four Human Rights Council resolutions condemning the use of cluster munitions in Syria, most recently on 2 July 2015.[4]

Saudi Arabia is not party to the Mine Ban Treaty. Saudi Arabia is party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.

Production, transfer, and stockpiling

Saudi Arabia is not known to have produced or exported cluster munitions, but it has acquired and stockpiles them.

In August 2013, the United States (US) Department of Defense concluded a contract for the manufacture of 1,300 CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapons—a cluster munition—for foreign military sale to Saudi Arabia by the US company Textron Defense Systems. The contract specified a completion date for the transfer by December 2015.[5] The US Department of Defense said the deal required that Saudi Arabia agree that “cluster munitions and cluster munitions technology will be used only against clearly defined military targets and will not be used where civilians are known to be present or in areas normally inhabited by civilians.”[6] This language is required by US law restricting the export of cluster munitions.

Previous US transfers of cluster munitions to Saudi Arabia include 1,000 CBU-58 and 350 CBU-71 cluster bombs sometime between 1970 and 1995.[7] In 1991, the US announced its intent to transfer 1,200 CBU-87 Combined Effects Munitions cluster bombs.[8] In addition, the US transferred 600 CBU-87 cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia as part of a larger package of arms sales announced in 1992.[9]

Jane’s Information Group has reported that British-produced BL-755 cluster bombs are in service with the Saudi air force.[10] Saudi Arabia also possesses Hydra-70 and CRV-7 air-to-surface rockets, but it is not known if the stocks include the M261 submunition variant.[11]

Use

Saudi Arabia has assembled and is leading a coalition of states that began attacking Ansar Allah (the Houthi) in Yemen on 25 March 2015, in a conflict that was continuing as of 1 August 2015.[12] Three types of cluster munitions have been used in the conflict in Yemen’s northern Saada governorate bordering Saudi Arabia.

In May 2015, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported the use of air-dropped cluster munitions at al-Shaaf in Saqeen in the western part of Saada governorate seen in a video uploaded on April 17 by a pro-Houthi YouTube channel.[13] It also identified cluster munition remnants in photographs taken on April 17 at the site of an airstrike near al-Amar area in al-Safraa, 30 kilometers south of Saada City. A subsequent research visit by HRW to al-Amar confirmed the use of cluster munitions.[14] In both attacks, US-made and -supplied CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapons were used, which deploy 10 BLU-108 canisters that each subsequently release four submunitions, called “skeets” by the manufacturer.

A Saudi military spokesman has acknowledged use of the CBU-105 (see below), although the UAE also possesses them and could be responsible.

HRW also reported Saudi coalition use of US-made BLU-97 submunitions, 202 of which are contained in each CBU-87 bomb, in the al-Maqash and al-Nushoor districts of Saada City on 23 May 2015. It also reported the use of ground-launched cluster munitions containing “ZP-39” submunitions near Baqim in Saada province on 29 April 2015, but could not determine who was responsible for this use.[15] The ZP-39’s producer and the delivery system used are not publicly known or included in standard international reference materials. Neither Saudi Arabia nor Houthi forces are known to possess this type of weapon, but both sides have rocket launchers and tube artillery capable of delivering them.[16]

Evidence that a fourth type of cluster munition may have been used has emerged on social media as Cluster Munition Monitor 2015 was going to print. On 2 July 2015, Abdulrahman Alrazhi tweeted a photograph showing a child holding two M77 submunitions from a ground-launched M26 rocket and stated that the munitions had been used in his district of Razeh in Saada governorate.[17] On 8 June, a Saudi reporter tweeted a photograph showing a M26 rocket containing M77 submunitions, which he said was taken in Saudi Arabia’s southern Jizan province, which borders Yemen’s Saada governorate.[18] That photograph shows the rocket’s motor section is missing indicating that the rocket misfired upon launch and failed to reach its destination and function as designed to disperse the submunitions.[19]

Saudi Arabia and other members of the coalition possess attack aircraft of US and Western/NATO origin capable of dropping US-made cluster bombs, while Yemen’s Soviet supplied aircraft are not capable of delivering US-made cluster bombs. Houthi forces are not known to operate aircraft capable of using cluster munitions, but may have access to ground-fired cluster munitions.

Responses to the cluster munition use

As of 1 August 2015, the government of Saudi Arabia had not issued a formal statement to confirm or deny the reports that the Saudi-led coalition used cluster munitions in Yemen in April and May 2015.[20] However, in numerous media interviews, Saudi Arabia’s military spokesperson Brig. Gen. Ahmed Asiri acknowledged use of CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapons in Yemen, but argued they have not been used in civilian areas or against civilians, and are not prohibited weapons for Saudi Arabia.[21]

CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapons are banned by the Convention on Cluster Munitions as they fall under the convention’s definition of a cluster munition specified in Article 2. The US acknowledges that the CBU-105 version of the Sensor Fuzed Weapon is the only cluster munition in the active US inventory “that meet[s] that our stringent requirements for unexploded ordnance rates, which may not exceed 1 percent.”[22] HRW found evidence the CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapons were used within 600 meters of villages in one attack, in possible violation of US law, and also found that some of the cluster munitions malfunctioned as their submunitions did not disperse from the canister, or dispersed but did not explode.[23]

Saudi Arabia has not commented on the BLU-97 submunitions used by Saudi-led coalition forces near Saada City on 23 May 2015.

The use of cluster munitions in Yemen in 2015 has received worldwide media coverage, public outcry, and has been condemned by states, including Costa Rica as president of the convention’s Fifth Meeting of States Parties.[24] At the convention’s intersessional meetings in June 2015, more than two-dozen states expressed concern at or condemned new use of cluster munitions, including a dozen that specifically mentioned the evidence of new use in Yemen.[25] The UN, the ICRC, and the CMC also condemned the use of cluster munitions.

On 9 July 2015, the European Parliament adopted a resolution condemning the Saudi-led coalition airstrikes in Yemen, including the use of cluster bombs.[26] During a European Parliament debate on 13 July 2015, European Parliament member Marietje Schaake spoke on behalf of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe to request that reports of cluster munition use by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen “be investigated thoroughly by the United Nations” as they “have serious consequences, if confirmed.”[27]

Previous use

Saudi Arabia likely used cluster munitions in Yemen’s Saada governorate in late 2009, when the Saudi air force conducted airstrikes and Saudi armed forces intervened on the ground after fighting between the government of Yemen and Ansar Allah intensified and spilled over the border with Saudi Arabia. Remnants of CBU-52 cluster bombs were filmed near Saada City and broadcast by VICE News in May 2014.[28] In July 2013, the Monitor reviewed photographs taken by mine clearance operators showing the remnants of unexploded BLU-97 and BLU-61 submunitions as well as dual-purpose improved conventional munition (DPICM) submunitions of an unknown origin.[29]

In 1991, both Saudi and US forces used cluster munitions on the territory of Saudi Arabia in response to an incursion by Iraqi armor units in the prelude to Operation Desert Storm. During the battle of Khafji in January 1991, Saudi Arabia attacked Iraqi forces with cluster munitions fired from ASTROS multi-barrel rocket launchers, which Saudi Arabia had acquired from Brazil.[30] The weapons reportedly left behind significant amounts of unexploded submunitions.[31]