cluster bomb

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cluster bomb

A projectile that, when dropped from an aircraft or fired through the air, releases explosive fragments over a wide area.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

cluster bomb

(Military) a bomb that throws out a number of smaller bombs or antipersonnel projectiles when it explodes

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

clus′ter bomb`

a bomb or shell designed to burst in midair and disperse small fragmentation bombs over a wide area.

[1960–65]

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Noun

cluster bomb - bomb consisting of a canister that is dropped from a plane and that opens to release a cluster of bomblets (usually fragmentation bombs) over a wide area; "cluster bombs cannot be targeted precisely"

bomb - an explosive device fused to explode under specific conditions

bomblet, cluster bomblet - one of the smaller bombs that are released from a cluster bomb

antipersonnel bomb, anti-personnel bomb, daisy cutter, fragmentation bomb - a bomb with only 10 to 20 per cent explosive and the remainder consisting of casings designed to break into many small high-velocity fragments; most effective against troops and vehicles

Translations

cluster bomb

n → Splitterbombe f

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

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References in periodicals archive ?

The US government will provide an extra $425,000 to the Cambodian Mine Action Centre (CMAC) for it to clear the remnants of cluster bombs dropped on eastern Cambodia 40 years ago and carry out research.

US government to provide $425K for war-era cluster bomb clearance

India is also targetting civilians areas with cluster bombs to provoke Pakistan, it added, noting that Islamabad would always stand strong with the Kashmiri people and would never leave them alone.

Pakistan to effectively respond to any Indian aggression: PM Imran after NSC meeting

More than 400 people were killed by cluster bombs in 2015, most of them dying in Syria, Yemen and Ukraine, which have not signed up to a treaty banning the weapon, an international anti-cluster bomb coalition said on Thursday.

Cluster bombs kill more than 400 people, over a third of them children

In March of this year, the three Coventry MPs backed moves in Parliament to close the glaring loophole allowing UK investors to support the cluster bomb trade, a trade illegal in the UK.

Credit to the city of peace; Letters

Cluster bombs are in the news again, thanks to a recent report from Amnesty International.

Cluster bombs and civilian lives

PRESSURE is growing on Bahrain to join the movement against controversial cluster bombs.

Ban cluster bombs!

Gaza, Lebanon and Afghanistan are also stark examples of the untold loss and suffering caused by cluster bombs. Meanwhile, the unrepentant Israeli army will not consider dropping the use of cluster bombs in civilian areas altogether.

Opinion: Cluster Bombs and Civilian Lives: Efficient Killing, Profits and Human Rights

They refused to take part in the historic signing of the treaty that banned the production and use of cluster bombs. In a world that is plagued by war, military occupation and terrorism, the involvement of the great military powers in signing and ratifying the agreement would have signaled -- if only symbolically - the willingness of these countries to spare civilians' unjustifiable deaths and the lasting scars of war.

Cluster Bombs and Civilian Lives: Efficient Killing, Profits and Human Rights

Summary: Israel handed over to United Nations peacekeepers maps of where it dropped cluster bombs in Lebanon during the 2006 war with Shiite group Hezbollah, the UNIFIL peacekeeping force said late Tuesday.

Israel hands over Lebanon cluster bomb maps

Dropped from warplanes or fired from artillery guns, cluster bombs explode in mid-air to randomly scatter hundreds of bomblets, which can be just 8cm large.

Treaty signed to ban cluster bombs

Ninety-three countries, including NATO allies and Afghanistan, adopted a treaty Thursday that bans cluster bombs, insidious weapons that have killed and maimed more innocent civilians than soldiers throughout the world.

Join cluster bomb ban

(29) These groups argue that unexploded dud cluster bomb submunitions function like antipersonnel mines even though cluster bombs are not covered under the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production, and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Landmines and on their Destruction (Mine Ban Treaty).