Explainer: Cluster bombs

By Allegra Stratton
Guardian Unlimited
Tuesday November 20, 2007

Cluster munitions are weapons that on impact disperse several hundred smaller munitions - also known as bomblets - over areas the size of two or three football pitches.
The only organisation to attempt to measure the numbers injured by unexploded munitions is Handicap International, which estimates that 98% of the 13,000 recorded victims were civilians rather than military.
In the UK, cluster munitions have continued in use nearly 10 years longer than landmines, which were banned in 1998, despite the high number that do not explode on impact and become de facto landmines.
The British army dropped some 113,190 of two types in Iraq, according to MoD figures, and 78,057 in Kosovo, according to Nato figures. In March 2007 the defence secretary, Des Browne, withdrew two "dumb" cluster munitions from service: the air-dropped BL755 and the rocket-launched M26.
The MoD says it keeps M85s in use because of their "significant military value". The US has rejected calls for an all-out ban.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,2214028,00.html