Made in America

Shrapnel found in Yemen ties US bombs to string of civilian deaths over course of bloody civil war




Last month, a CNN investigation found remnants of a US-made bomb at the scene of an airstrike that left dozens of schoolboys dead. Now, an independent Yemen-based human rights group called Mwatana has given CNN exclusive access to a trove of documents that show fragments of US-manufactured bombs at the scene of a string of other incidents since 2015, when the civil war began. In each of those cases, civilians were either killed or put at risk.

Mwatana, which documents violations by all parties in Yemen’s conflict, used its network of trained field researchers to photograph evidence at the scene of strikes. The group consulted weapons experts to identify the weapons used from serial numbers found on the fragments. Mwatana was recognized last month with an award by US body Human Rights First.

While CNN was not on the ground, we have made our own checks using image metadata and publicly available government websites linking each of these incidents to a US manufacturer. An internationally renowned weapons expert also analyzed each image for CNN.






The CAGE number and data on this image identify the fragment as a piece of a control actuator manufactured by Raytheon for use with its bombs. The date stamp shows this part was made in September 2010.

https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2018/09/world/yemen-airstrikes-intl/index.html





 

Last edited by Goose (9/19/2018 7:29 am)