Experts clearing cluster bombs from Lebanese villages

SULTANIYE, Lebanon (AFP) - The cluster bomblet came to rest in a corner of the roof, just above a lemon tree in this southern Lebanese village.

So far, it has failed to explode, and Frank Masche has come to make sure that it never will.

Masche, 38, and his team from the British charity MAG, have been destroying cluster munitions since shortly after the August 14 ceasefire that halted a 34-day war between Israel and the Hezbollah Shiite militia.

A MAG advance team going from house to house in the village found the three-inch (eight-centimetre) bomblet and spray-painted a big red circle on the cement so Masche could find it.

He bends down, moves some stones from around the dark-green canister, and gets to work.

Masche must decide whether the device poses an immediate danger and should be detonated on the spot, or can be disarmed and removed for later demolition.

"I'll check it and then I'll decide," he says.

A minute later he comes down from the flat roof.

"I did it," Masche says, unwilling to reveal how he disabled the explosive.

He carries his equipment in a camouflaged bag that resembles a woman's purse. The disarmed bomblet is inside the bag, which gets heavier during the afternoon as more bomblets are found.

"We'll end up with 50 to 60 today, which is all right," says Masche, a former German soldier working as a civilian explosives ordnance disposal expert since 1992.

MAG is one of the agencies tasked by the Mine Action Coordination Centre, a partnership between the United Nations and Lebanon's National Demining Office, with removing the cluster munitions.

MAG had been in Lebanon for six years clearing land mines but the priority switched to unexploded cluster bombs after the July-August war because they pose an immediate danger to people wanting to return home, said Dalya Farran, media officer for the Mine Action Coordination Centre in the coastal town of Tyre.

MAG's four teams will be backed up beginning Thursday by 19 Iraqi bomb disposal experts, said Sean Sutton, a MAG spokesman.

Farran said the Swedish Rescue Services Agency also has two bomb disposal teams in Lebanon and the British organization Bactec is about to begin work.

During the war, Israel fired hundreds of artillery shells each containing nearly 200 individual munitions like the one that Masche disarmed on the roof.

At least 60 people have been killed or wounded since the ceasefire, Farran said, including one hurt Wednesday in the town of Nabatiye.

Part of the problem comes from villagers who decide to clean up the munitions themselves, says Masche, technical field manager for his nine-man team.

Farran said at least 375 cluster bomb sites have been found in south Lebanon.

"On average we are locating 30 new locations every day," she said. "So you can see it's a huge problem we are facing."

Masche has found so many of the American-made M-42 cluster munitions that he named them "bomblet of the month" on his personal website, which he uses to educate others.

"Basically when I'm on a mission and I find something interesting, I make a short description," he says before disarming an M-42 canister in the courtyard of another house. The bomblets came from a 155-millimetre artillery shell, he says.

At the home of Mohammed el Sakka, Masche takes care of three more bomblets. To show their appreciation, the family serves the MAG team juice and pomegranates.

"They want to help the people in the village," Sakka says. "They are doing good work."

Except for the threat that lingered from unexploded cluster bombs, his house, like many others in the cosy village of narrow streets and fruit trees, appeared virtually unaffected by the bombing.

Yet few people appear to be living in Sultaniye, where scattered homes were reduced to rubble.

Masche wears no protective gear, only his brown T-shirt with a MAG logo, dusty desert boots, a goatee, rose-tinted sunglasses and a floppy hat over his shaved head.

"We try to mop up a village in two to four days," he says.

Asked what goes through his mind when he disarms a bomblet, Masche says, "The technology. I think about what I'm doing."

In 14 years he has never had an accident, and he says he maintains a respect for the material he works with.

"When you start thinking that nothing can possibly happen to you, that's when you start to make mistakes," he says. "I'm scared of electricity because I don't understand it. Bombs, I do understand, so there's a difference."

Masche says he finds satisfaction in helping people to get on with their lives -- and saving them from the torment of living without limbs.

"That's why I'm doing it."

In the late afternoon, it is time to destroy the bomblets in Masche's bag.

He works for more than an hour preparing a demolition site beside a tree in a valley below the town, whose silence is broken by thunderous blasts from over the hills, where other demolition teams are at work.

A siren sounds a warning.

There is a flash of fire. A cloud of dust. And a cracking sound that hits you in the chest.

Sultaniye just became a little bit safer.

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