Posted on 05/11/2009 8:53:56 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Taleban using white phosphorus, some of it made in Britain
An eight-year-old girl, injured during an airstrike in the Afghan village of Garni in western Farah province, recovering in hospital in Herat city
Michael Evans, Defence Editor
Taleban fighters have been using deadly white phosphorus munitions, some of them manufactured in Britain, to attack Western forces in Afghanistan, according to previously classified United States documents released yesterday.
White phosphorus, which can burn its victims down to the bone, has been found in improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in regions across Afghanistan including in the south, where British troops are based. It has also been used in mortar and rocket attacks on American forces.
Last night the US military in Kabul condemned the use of white phosphorus by the insurgents as “reprehensible”. White phosphorus is banned as an offensive weapon under international rules of armed conflict.
Major Jennifer Willis, a spokeswoman for the US Army at Bagram, near Kabul, said that markings on some of the white phosphorus munitions that had been recovered showed that they had been manufactured in a number of different countries, including Britain, China, Russia and Iran.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
Ping!
I can see the M-15 boxes being trucked up front now.
Totally bogus. No it is not.
Unlike possible Israeli uses of white phosphorus on Islamic terrorists, the Taliban using it on innocent civilians is completely legitimate.
/leftard
Notice how the Times uses a photo of an Aghani girl wounded presumably by an American air strike instead of a victim of the Taliban’s use of white phosphorus.
typical British anti-Americanism!
It’s not considered a chemical weapon?
It’s still not too late to effectively pursue the
“self-illuminating glass-bottomed parking lot” option...
The Left leaning ABC, CBS, the AP, NYT, MSNBC, CNN, Amnesty International, etc. is on this where? Frakin’ hypocrities.
It is an incendiary device. It is not considered a chemical weapon since it is not primarily designed to cause death/injury through a toxic process.
OK then return the favor and nape their asses.
I’ll take Naptha/Palm oil (Napalm) for $100 Alex.
Stick thermite grenades where the sun don’t shine.
No, WP is not a chemical and it is not a weapon of mass destruction. Chemical warfare is not banned simply because it is a chemical. When used as a military weapon its purpose is to kill lots of people stealthily and indescriminantly. The fact that that chemical weapons are often invisible or otherwise hard to detect creates an additional terror element.
WP’s purpose is to specifically kill or wound the people who are shooting at you. And it’s dispersal radius is limited by the kind of round that delivers it. In addition, it does not have a residual kill potential. For instance, chemical and biologicals can be made with relatively long lethality times. They linger on the ground or cling to vegetation and structures. Tactically, they are used to deny certain terrain to the enemy and/or channel the enemy to go in certain directions. Unlike chemicals or biologicals, WP does not depend on wind currents for dispersal.
And, as someone else has said, it is not banned—at least as far as I know. This was a made up story by the media. In any case, it looks like the Taliban was using the WP in the first place—some of it came from Britain.
So the leftist propaganda mill continues to produce its anti-American drivel.
WHEN did they ban WP??? It must have been AFTER Vietnam!
Stay safe, troops.
WP was around eons longer than thermal imagers. But, yes, it can be used to defeat thermal imagers. It’s original purpose was to “encourage” dug in enemy soldiers to surrender. Burning to death is a very unpleasant way to go. And when a piece of phosphorous embeds itself in your body it is not only excruciatingly painful, it is also continuing to consume your body. It is very hard for medics to deal with on the battlefield since they risk burning themselves when trying to excise the WP.
WP is also an excellent method for the ordinary combat soldier to destroy arms, ammo, material and food caches. Pile the stuff up, throw in some WP and eventually the pile will blow up. Naturally, it is not a good idea to stand around and watch for the big event.
I know. When I was in the artillery, mixed HE and WP was called “shake and bake.” You used it soft targets like trucks. The HE breaks them open, the WP burns them down.
However, the primary use of WP was smoke. It generates lots of smoke fast. Anti-material use was secondary.
I think there is something in the Geneva Convention that outlaws its use against personnel targets, but it doesn’t really matter, because its allows its use against material targets (like uniforms, web gear, weapons, and helmets...).
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