(Washington, DC, April 2, 2003) -- Iraq has violated international humanitarian law by storing antipersonnel landmines inside a mosque in Kadir Karam in northern Iraq, and placing them around the mosque before abandoning the area on March 27th, Human Rights Watch said today.

The British demining organization, Mines Advisory Group (MAG), reported that it entered the mosque today [April 2] and dismantled more than 150 mines. Photos of MAG´s activities can be seen at http://www.magclearsmines.org.

Iraq is not among the 132 countries that are party to the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty that outlaws any use, production, stockpiling or trade in antipersonnel mines. However, Human Rights Watch believes that any use of antipersonnel mines by any armed force is prohibited by customary international humanitarian law since they are inherently indiscriminate weapons. International humanitarian law also prohibits using places of worship in support of the military effort.

“Antipersonnel mines should be viewed as completely repugnant weapons whose use is beyond the pale, just like weapons of mass destruction,” said Steve Goose, executive director of the Arms Division of Human Rights Watch. “Iraq´s use of these insidious weapons must be condemned. In the long run, they are sure to cause more pain and suffering to Iraqi civilians than to enemy soldiers,” said Goose.

According to information provided by mine clearance organizations such as MAG and Norwegian People´s Aid, as well as media accounts, Iraqi forces began planting mines before the outbreak of conflict and have continued laying them in a number of areas.

The New York Times reported today [April 2] that U.S. troops entering Najaf found Baath Party and paramilitary forces had laid mines on roads and bridges leading out of the city. Internally displaced persons in the Kirkuk area have told MAG that massive minefields have been laid by Iraqi forces along main routes and around now-abandoned positions. There have been press reports in recent days of Kurdish fighters (peshmergas) clearing many hundreds of recently laid mines. Since mid-March, Iraqi mine laying has also been reported in the south near the Kuwait border, around Basra, around oil wells and elsewhere.

Iraq was already a heavily mined country. Landmines were used extensively in the 1991 Gulf War by Iraq and by the United States and other coalition forces. Iraq is also littered with mines from the Iraq-Iran War of the 1980s and decades of internal conflict.

Today, Kaveh Golestan, a cameraman working for the British Broadcasting Corporation, was killed in Iraq when he stepped on a landmine.

Like Iraq, the United States is not a party to the Mine Ban Treaty, though nearly all of its coalition partners are, including the United Kingdom and Australia. The UK and Australia are forbidden by the treaty to assist in any way with possible U.S. use of antipersonnel mines.

The United States has not used antipersonnel mines since the 1991 Gulf War, but has reserved the right to use them in this conflict. Thus far, the only reports of U.S. mine use have been references to Claymore-type directional fragmentation munitions used in command-detonated (soldier-operated) mode; these weapons are not prohibited by the Mine Ban Treaty because they are triggered by the soldier, not the victim.