“Russia is breaching international conventions by dropping incendiaries similar to white phosphorus on to residential neighbourhoods in the Syrian city of Aleppo in what is thought to be the prelude to a ground assault to retake the city from rebel forces.”
Censor.NET reports referring to The Times.
“Photographs have also shown what experts believe to be a thermobaric bomb, the most powerful explosive apart from a nuclear weapon, being detonated next to urban areas, with potentially devastating effects for civilians.”
“I’d say thermite is worse than white phosphorus as it’s extremely difficult to put out,” Eliot Higgins, founder of Bellingcat, an investigative journalism website, who identified the weapons, said. “We have seen these munitions used before in the conflict, since late 2012. But the interesting aspect (in these recent attacks) is that Russia appears to be the one dropping them.”
“Thermite is only the latest banned or restricted weapon to be deployed by the Kremlin in Syria. There have also been reports of cluster munitions – bombs that break up in the air into smaller incendiaries that can cause death and injury over a wide area – since Russia entered the conflict on President Bashar al-Assad’s side last September,” The Times notes.
Although Russia is not a party to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, it is a signatory to the Geneva Convention banning the use of incendiary weapons off the battlefield, according to the article.
Russia has not signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but it does not mean that their use should not be investigated, Andrew Smith, a representative of the Campaign Against Arms Trade said, adding a stronger political will is needed to stop those atrocities and abuses. These weapons are not just deadly but also have an indiscriminate effect, he noted.
