UK using 'enhanced' US missiles in Afghanistan
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
London, May 29, IRNA – British pilots in Afghanistan are firing an increasing number of "enhanced blast" thermobaric weapons, designed to kill everyone in buildings they strike, the Ministry of Defence has revealed.
The admission, made by Defence Secretary John Hutton in a written parliamentary reply, comes after two more British soldiers died from separate attacks in Afghanistan on Thursday, bringing the total so far in May to ten, the highest monthly number since June last year and the third highest since the UK began military operations in the country in 2001.
Hutton reported that more than 20 US-designed missiles, which are officially described as having a "blast fragmentation warhead," have been fired by pilots of British Apache attack helicopters so far this year, the same number as in the whole of 2008.
British Apaches were initially equipped with lighter anti-tank Hellfire missiles, which are said to simply make a "small hole" in a building and allow the enemy to run away unscathed.
The Liberal Democrat’s shadow defence secretary Nick Harvey, who obtained the information on the UK firing the enhanced US missiles, accused the Ministry of Defence of becoming “trigger-happy” given its reluctance to admit even using the weapons.
"If these controversial weapons are being fired on a weekly basis in Afghanistan, we need to know that they are being used according to strict rules of engagement,” Harvey warned.
According to the Guardian, he said that human rights groups have “serious concerns about the effect of these weapons in populated areas, and their legality seems to be a grey area. “
“The last thing we need in this counter-insurgency campaign is the allegation that civilians are dying at the hands of some kind of terror weapon. Parliament must be reassured these are a weapon of last resort," Harvey told the daily.
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