Summary 

Non-signatory Egypt has not taken any steps to join the Convention on Cluster Munitions and continues to express its opposition to certain provisions of the convention. It last participated in a meeting of the convention in 2013. Egypt abstained from voting on a key annual United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution promoting the convention in December 2022.

Egypt is a producer, importer, and exporter of cluster munitions. Egypt possesses a stockpile of cluster munitions, but claims not to use them.

Policy

The Arab Republic of Egypt has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Egypt has not taken any steps to accede to the convention and has elaborated several reasons for not doing so.[1] At the UNGA in November 2022, Egypt repeated its criticism of the convention’s definition of cluster munitions, which it alleges was “deliberately designed to fit the specific production requirements of some states.” Egypt also reiterated its long-held concern over how the convention was created outside United Nations (UN) auspices.[2]

Egypt participated in the Oslo Process that created the convention, including the negotiations in Dublin in May 2008 as an observer, but did not adopt the convention.[3] Egypt expressed concern in October 2008 over both the “substantive content” of the convention and “the process which led to its conclusion outside the framework of the United Nations.”[4] It did not attend the convention’s Oslo Signing Conference, held in December 2008

Egypt last participated as an observer at a meeting of the convention in 2013.[5] Egypt was invited to, but did not attend, the Tenth Meeting of States Parties in Geneva in August–September 2022.

In December 2022, Egypt abstained from voting on the UNGA resolution that urged states outside the Convention on Cluster Munitions “to join as soon as possible,” and provided a statement to explain its vote.[6] Egypt has abstained from the vote on the annual UNGA resolution promoting the convention since it was first introduced in 2015.

Egypt is not party to the Mine Ban Treaty. Egypt signed the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) in 1981, but never ratified it.

Production, transfer, and stockpiling

Egypt is a producer and exporter of cluster munitions. It has also imported cluster munitions and possesses a stockpile.

Two state-owned Egyptian companies have produced ground-launched cluster munitions:

• SAKR Factory for Developed Industries has produced two types of 122mm surface-to-surface rockets: the SAKR-18 and SAKR-36, containing 72 and 98 dual-purpose improved conventional munition (DPICM) submunitions, respectively;[7]
• Heliopolis Company for Chemical Industries has produced 122mm and 130mm artillery projectiles, which contain 18 and 28 DPICM submunitions, respectively.[8] Heliopolis-made cluster munitions were displayed by Egypt’s Ministry of Military Production for sale at the international IDEX arms fair in Abu Dhabi in February 2017.[9]

Evidence indicates that Egypt exported or otherwise transferred cluster munitions to Syria in the past, prior to 2013.[10] Human Rights Watch (HRW) and others documented Syrian government use of 122mm cluster munition rockets bearing the markings of the SAKR Factory for Developed Industries.[11] The state-owned company has denied providing rockets to the Syrian government.[12]

Egypt has imported a significant quantity of cluster munitions, primarily from the United States (US), which provided at least 760 CBU-87 cluster bombs (each containing 202 BLU-97 submunitions) as part of a foreign military sales program in the early 1990s.[13] Lockheed Martin Corporation was awarded a US$36 million contract to produce 485 M26A1 extended range rockets for its M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) in 1991.[14] Egypt also received 1,300 Rockeye cluster bombs from the US between 1970 and 1995.[15]

KMG-U dispensers of Soviet-origin are in service for Egypt’s aircraft, according to Jane’s Information Group.[16]

Use

During the Oslo Process, Egypt stated that it had never used cluster munitions.[17]

Previous allegations

There have been several allegations of new use of cluster munitions by Egyptian forces since the Convention on Cluster Munitions was adopted. In February 2018, Amnesty International condemned new use of cluster munitions on the Sinai Peninsula by the Egyptian Air Force, citing evidence from two videos posted by Egyptian military social media accounts, including one that showed US-made CBU-87 Combined Effects Munitions, each containing 202 BLU-97 bomblets, being loaded on to Egyptian aircraft.[18] A February 2018 video posted on Twitter by the Egyptian Army’s official spokesperson showed a US-made Mk-118 submunition, used in Rockeye cluster bombs, that Egyptian armed forces alleged was found and destroyed in northern Sinai.[19] Further remnants of the same Mk-118 submunition, plus canister packing materials, were shown being recovered from a cache of explosives belonging to an anti-government militia in May 2022.[20]

Egyptian officials have never responded to requests from The New York Times, the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC), HRW, Amnesty International, and others to either confirm or deny claims that the Egyptian Armed Forces have used cluster munitions in northern Sinai.[21]

Alleged use outside of Egypt

A November 2017 video released by the Egyptian Army shows a reported attack by the Egyptian Air Force on a convoy of trucks in Libya, in which cluster munitions may have been used.[22]