Summary

Non-signatory Bahrain has expressed interest in the Convention on Cluster Munitions but has not taken any steps to join it. Bahrain participated as an observer in one meeting of the convention, in 2018. It has abstained from voting on the annual United Nations (UN) resolution promoting the convention since 2015.

Bahrain is not known to have produced, exported, or used cluster munitions, but possesses a stockpile of cluster munitions, primarily imported from the United States (US).

Policy

The Kingdom of Bahrain has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

While government officials have expressed interest in the convention, Bahrain has not taken any steps to accede to it.[1]

Bahrain participated in two meetings of the Oslo Process that created the convention and joined in the consensus adoption of the convention in Dublin in May 2008, but did not attend the signing conference in Oslo in December 2008.[2] During the Wellington Conference on Cluster Munitions in February 2008, Bahrain called upon states “to stop using such weapons, and should consider such use as a crime against humanity” and affirmed that it “strongly supports all efforts to eliminate all kinds of cluster munitions, and to prohibit their use, transfer, trade and stockpiling.”[3]

Bahrain participated as an observer in the convention’s Eighth Meeting of States Parties in Geneva in September 2018, which marked its first and to date only participation in a meeting of the convention. Bahrain was invited to, but did not attend, the convention’s Second Review Conference in November 2020 and September 2021, or its intersessional meetings in May 2022.

In December 2021, Bahrain abstained from voting on a key United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution, which urged states outside the Convention on Cluster Munitions to “join as soon as possible.”[4] Bahrain has abstained from voting on the annual UNGA resolution promoting the convention since it was first introduced in 2015.

Bahrain has voted in favor of UNGA resolutions condemning use of cluster munitions in Syria.[5]

Bahrain is not party to the Mine Ban Treaty. Bahrain is however a State Party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW).

Production, transfer, and stockpiling

Bahrain is not known to have produced or exported cluster munitions, but it possesses a stockpile.

Bahrain imported cluster munitions from the US in the past, receiving 30,000 surplus M509A1, M449A1, and M483 artillery projectiles containing a total of 5.06 million dual-purpose improved conventional munition (DPICM) submunitions from 1995–2001.[6]

Bahrain has also received M26 cluster munition rockets and ATACMS-1A missiles from the US, containing more than one million submunitions for M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) launchers.[7] It purchased 151 M26A1 MLRS extended range rocket pods (six missiles per pod; 644 submunitions per rocket) from the US in 1996, as well as 55 rocket pods in 1997 and 57 rocket pods in 2003.[8] In 2000, Bahrain purchased 30 M39 ATACMS-1A missiles, each with 950 M74 submunitions.[9] In March 2022, the US announced a US$176 million request from Bahrain to purchase upgrades in order to convert nine of its M270 MLRS launchers to a M270 A1 minimum configuration, which does not include the previous cluster munition variants.[10]

Jane’s Information Group has also listed United Kingdom (UK)-made BL755 cluster bombs in the inventory of Bahrain’s air force, and reports that Bahrain possesses the Hydra-70 air-to-surface unguided rocket system, though it is not known if this includes the M261 submunition variant.[11]

Use

Bahrain is not known to have used cluster munitions. However, since March 2015, Bahrain has participated in a Saudi Arabia-led joint military operation in Yemen that has used cluster munitions against Houthi forces, also known as Ansar Allah.