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US cluster bombs 'killed 35 women and children'

Thirty five women and children were killed by an American cruise missile armed with cluster bombs which struck an alleged al-Qaeda training camp in Yemen, according to a study.

The deaths, immediately prior to the discovery of Yemeni links to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the alleged "underpants bomber" who tried to blow up a plane over Detroit on Christmas day, caused outrage across the country.

The Yemeni government, anxious not to stir anti-American feeling, denied initial claims that the attack was carried out by the US.

But a study Amnesty International said a US Tomahawk cruise missile hit the site, judging by photographs of debris studied by a weapons expert. The warhead include cluster bombs, at least one of which remained in the area unexploded afterwards.

The Pentagon has refused so far to confirm the allegations, but the deaths would represent the biggest civilian loss of life in an American attack in Yemen.

In the attack on al-Majala in Southern Yemen on December 17, 55 people are thought to have been killed. Yemeni forces said 14 of these were al-Qaeda members.

They included a local al-Qaeda leader, Mohammed Saleh al-Kazimi.

The others were civilians, and 14 were women and 21 children, including al-Kazimi's family.

Photographs smuggled out to Amnesty International showed the remains of the payload, mid-body, aft-body and propulsion sections of a BGM-109D Tomahawk cruise missile, the study said. This kind of missile is designed to carry a payload of 166 cluster bomblets, and one of the photographs showed an unexploded BLU97 A/B bomblet.

Only American forces are known to hold such weapons. Its serial number was traced to the Kansas Army Ammunition Plant, with a date of September 1992.

Amnesty said it was "gravely concerned" by the evidence of use of cluster bombs, since most states have promised to ban their use.

"Cluster munitions have indiscriminate effects and unexploded bomblets threaten lives and livelihoods for years afterwards," said Mike Lewis, the group's international arms control researcher.

Yemen is the poorest Arab nation and lives with the constant threat of violence between the government, Islamist radicals, separatists, minority groups and tribal groupings. It is a major recipient of western aid.