Iran
Cluster Munition Ban Policy
The Islamic Republic of Iran has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
Iran did not participate in the Oslo Process that created the convention and has never attended a meeting on cluster munitions or made a public statement on the issue.
Iran is not party to the Mine Ban Treaty or the Convention on Conventional Weapons.
Iran is not known to have used cluster munitions, but has a stockpile. It has imported cluster munitions and may have produced them.
Jane’s Information Group lists Iran as possessing KMG-U dispensers that deploy submunitions, PROSAB-250 cluster bombs, and BL-755 cluster bombs.[1] Media reports indicate that in November 2006 it tested a domestically produced version of the Shahab-2 missile capable of delivering 1,400 bomblets.[2]
Additionally, Iran possesses Grad 122mm surface-to-surface rockets as well as a number of types of 122mm, 240mm, and 333mm rockets it produces, but it is not known if these include versions with submunition payloads.[3]
According to one source, Iraq used air-dropped cluster bombs against Iranian troops in 1984 during the Iran-Iraq war.[4]
According to a United States (US) Navy document, on 18 April 1988, US Navy aircraft attacked Iranian Revolutionary Guard speedboats and an Iranian Navy ship with 18 Mk-20 Rockeye bombs during Operation Praying Mantis.[5]
[1] Robert Hewson, ed., Jane’s Air-Launched Weapons, Issue 44 (Surrey, UK: Jane’s Information Group Limited, 2004), p. 840.
[2] Nasser Karimi, “Iran Test-Fires New Longer-Range Missile,” Associated Press (Tehran), 2 November 2006.
[3] International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 2011 (London: Routledge, 2011), p. 309; Colin King, ed., Jane’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal 2007–2008, CD-edition, 15 January 2008, (Surrey, UK: Jane’s Information Group Limited, 2008).
[4] Anthony H. Cordesman and Abraham R. Wagner, Lessons of Modern War Volume II: The Iran-Iraq War (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1990), p. 210. The bombs were reportedly produced by Chile.
[5] Memorandum from the Commanding Officer of the USS Enterprise (CVN-65) to the Director of Naval History (OP-09BH), “1988 Command History,” 27 February 1989, p. 20.