'Libya DU pollution to last for 1bn years'

Islam Times reports from Press TV: “There is a lot of evidence that points strongly toward it. The way some of these armed vehicles and tanks have been hit look like it's pretty strong evidence that it is depleted uranium; it's the kind of explosive burn that you get from that particular ammunition,” said author and investigative journalist David Lindorff.

“And certainly the US has been flying A10s, which generally use depleted uranium shells in their armaments,” he added.

Lindorff said the use of depleted uranium in weapons should be stopped “because they completely toxify [the battlefields] for a billion years.”

“So you've got this microscopic uranium dust wherever the weapons were used in the environment and anyone who lives there in the future of 'liberated' Iraq or 'liberated' Libya or 'liberated' Afghanistan or wherever they use these weapons is polluted with uranium dust for generations and generations to come.”

“We're seeing the results of that in Fallujah in Iraq where the birth defect rate is astronomical.”

The use of depleted uranium by US forces during the Iraq led to high rate of birth defects and cancer diagnoses in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, according to a study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

Hundreds of civilians have been killed in Libya since US-led forces launched aerial attacks on the North African country.

The war in Libya has so far killed around 10,000 people and injured over 50,000 others, reports say.