‘Beat IS with ground war’

Probe on bombs

LONDON, May 24, (Agencies): Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair says the Islamic State group will be defeated only with a ground war involving Western troops.

Blair says air strikes alone will not defeat the militants. He said Tuesday that “you are going to have to go and wage a proper ground war,” with British and American troops playing a supporting role.

Blair’s decision to take Britain into the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 remains deeply divisive, and Iraq is mired in violence. Blair is likely to be criticized in a long-delayed report on the war and its aftermath that will published in July.

At an event in London, Blair acknowledged the invading nations had underestimated the “forces of destabilization” that would emerge in Iraq after the toppling of dictator Saddam Hussein.

Meanwhile, Britain is investigating reports that cluster munitions made in the country during the 1970s have been used by a Saudi-led coalition during the ongoing conflict in Yemen, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond told parliament on Tuesday.

Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Arab allies began a military campaign in Yemen in March last year with the aim of preventing Iran-allied Houthi rebels and forces loyal to Yemen’s ex-president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, taking control of the country.

Amnesty International said on Monday it had documented Saudi use of cluster bombs in Yemen that had been manufactured in Britain.

Blair

Allegations

“The MoD (Ministry of Defence) is now urgently investigating the allegations that have been made,” Hammond told parliament. He said the weapons described in Amnesty’s report were decades old, and that it was now illegal to use or supply such bombs under British law.

Britain has ratified an international treaty prohibiting the use of cluster bombs, which scatter smaller bombs over a wide area. Saudi Arabia has not ratified the treaty.

Hammond said that there was currently no evidence that Saudi Arabia had used cluster munitions, and that Britain had previously been told by Saudi authorities that such weapons had not been used. Responding to an urgent question in parliament, junior defence minister Philip Dunne said Britain was seeking fresh assurance in light of the report, but he urged caution over its findings.

“There have been seven conflicts in the border area between Saudi Arabia and northern Yemen in the last decade, so it is not clear to us from the evidence provided thus far that this munition has come from the current conflict,” Dunne said. The bomb, designed to break into more than 2,000 fragments, is known to be in the stockpiles of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Amnesty said.

“Even after hostilities have died down, the lives and livelihoods of civilians, including young children, continue to be on the line in Yemen as they return to de facto minefields,” said Lama Fakih, Amnesty International senior crisis adviser.

Safety

“They cannot live in safety until contaminated areas in and around their homes and fields are identified and cleared of deadly cluster bomb sub munitions and other unexploded ordnance,” Fakih said in a statement.

A Saudi-led coalition began a military campaign in Yemen in March last year with the aim of preventing Iran-allied Houthi rebels and forces loyal to Yemen’s ex-President Ali Abdullah Saleh from taking control of the country. More than 6,000 Yemenis, about half of them civilians, have been killed in the fighting and airstrikes over the past year, the United Nations says. Millions more have been displaced.

The human rights group said during its recent mission it documented 10 new cases in which 16 civilians, including nine children, were killed or injured by cluster munitions between July 2015 and April 2016.

A British government spokesman said Britain was satisfied that its arms export licences for Saudi Arabia were compliant with UK and EU criteria.

“The UK Government takes its arms export responsibilities very seriously and operates one of the most robust arms export control regimes in the world,” he said in a statement.

Britain was not a member of the Saudi-led coalition and British personnel were not involved in carrying out strikes in Yemen, directing or conducting operations or selecting targets, he said. Amnesty said since the start of the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen it documented the use five other types of cluster munitions used by the coalition forces manufactured by the United States and Brazil.