WASHINGTON, March 27. /TASS/. The US dropped BLU-91/B anti-tank land mines from aircraft near the city of Shiraz in southern Iran, The Washington Post (WP) reported, citing experts who analyzed images posted to social media.

An Iranian missile site is located about five kilometers from the city, the report says. Experts believe these mines are intended to hinder mobile launchers from accessing the site. "This type of land mine is designed to detonate when it senses a magnetic signature, like a large vehicle," an expert said. "But the devices can sometimes inadvertently detonate when civilians move them, and they have a self-destruct feature that can cause them to explode hours or days after they are deployed," the newspaper writes.

The dispensers that are dropped from aircraft to scatter dozens of these devices at a time often include both anti-tank and antipersonnel land mines. The newspaper reports that there are no signs of anti-personnel mines in the images. The last known US employment of scatterable anti-tank land mines in a conflict was during the Gulf War in 1991, experts said.

Earlier, the Tasnim news agency reported that several local residents were killed by mines disguised as tin cans dropped from Israeli and American aircraft in some areas near the city of Shiraz.