Policy

The Syrian Arab Republic has not acceded to the Mine Ban Treaty.

Syria has articulated the same position on the ban treaty for years without change: it is concerned with the plight of mine victims, but views antipersonnel mines as necessary weapons as shown by its use of the weapons since 2011. Syria also considers Israel’s continued annexation/occupation of part of the Golan Heights as a key reason for not joining the treaty.[1]

Syria last participated as an observer in a Mine Ban Treaty meeting in 2006.[2] It has rarely made any public statements on its landmine policy or participated in treaty meetings as an observer.

Since 1996, Syria has abstained from voting on every annual pro-ban UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution on landmines, including UNGA Resolution 71/34 on 5 December 2016.

Syria is not party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions or the Convention on Conventional Weapons. It acceded to the Chemical Weapons Convention on 14 September 2013.

Production, transfer, and stockpiling

Syria is not known to have produced or exported antipersonnel mines.

The size and origin of Syria’s mine stockpile is not known, but it is believed to be significant and comprised mainly of Soviet/Russian-manufactured mines including PMN-2, PMN-4, and OZM-72 antipersonnel mines, as well as TMN-46 and TM-62 antivehicle mines. Photographs and a video posted online by the Syrian Center for Demining Rehabilitation on 28 September 2015, allegedly filmed west of Daraa in southern Syria, show up to 20 PMN-4 antipersonnel mines being removed from the ground.[3] This is the first evidence of use of the PMN-4 in the Syria conflict, but it is unclear who laid them or when. Markings on the mines indicate they were manufactured in Russia in 1995.

Use

Prior to the current armed conflict that began in 2011, Syria was last believed to have used landmines in 1982 during the conflict with Israel in Lebanon. Little was known about the extent of its landmine problem, but the most significantly mined areas were in the Syrian-controlled Golan Heights, in the southwest of the country, in addition to its borders.

In late 2011, the first reports emerged of Syrian government use of antipersonnel mines in the country’s border areas.[4] A Syrian official acknowledged the government had “undertaken many measures to control the borders, including planting mines.”[5]

In 2016, reports of mine use by the so-called Islamic State (IS) and Syrian government forces increased. The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) reported several incidents from mines that IS fighters likely laid as the group controlled the territory for prolonged periods of time. For example, in Aleppo governorate alone, SNHR reported civilian casualties in August, September, and October 2016 from landmines that IS apparently laid in the villages of Najm,[6] Abu Qalqal,[7] Al Humar,[8] and Al Dadat.[9]

The landmine use continued in 2017, with SNHR reporting 12 casualties in Raqqa governorate in just August and September, from incidents in Kasrat Srour,[10] Raqqa City,[11] and Hneida.[12] Syria’s state-run news agency reported in October that a photographer with Syrian state TV had been killed in the central Homs province when a land mine left behind by IS militants exploded.[13]

IS is retreating from former strongholds, but leaves improvised landmines and booby traps behind in a last effort to kill civilians and opposition forces. In October 2017, a British soldier fighting with the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) was killed while clearing landmines in the abandoned city of Raqqa.[14] Between September 2015 and January 2017, Mines Advisory Groups (MAG) successfully cleared 7,500 improvised mines and other improvised devices from Iraq and Syria.[15]

In January 2016, Doctors Without Borders (Medecins sans Frontieres, MSF) reported that Syrian government forces laid landmines around the town of Madaya in Rif Dimashq governorate, some 10 kilometers from the Lebanon border. According to MSF, civilians trying to flee the city have been killed and injured by “bullets and landmines.”[16] In October 2016, residents of Madaya claimed that the Lebanese armed group, Hezbollah, operating together with government forces, laid mines around the town.

In March 2016, Syrian government forces in the city of Palmyra reported that they were finding landmines planted by IS fighters.[17]

During a five-day investigation in Manbij in early October 2016, Human Rights Watch (HRW) collected the names of 69 civilians, including 19 children, killed by improvised mines, including booby-traps, which were laid in schools, homes, and on roads during and after the fighting over control of the city, involving IS and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)—a coalition of Kurdish, Arab, and other forces supported by the United States government.[18] Nearly all the incidents documented by HRW appeared to have been caused by victim-activated improvised explosive devices, rather than by explosives detonated by a vehicle or by remote-control.