U.S. moves to help locate unexploded bombs in Mosul

WASHINGTON — A top American military commander has declassified 81 locations of unexploded bombs dropped by the U.S.-led coalition in the battle to oust Islamic State militants from the Iraqi city of Mosul. And officials are considering similar disclosures for other areas, in a rare step to help aid groups and contractors clear explosives from warravaged Iraqi cities.

Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, in a newly released memo, said he was providing a list of geographic coordinates “for the sake of public safety.” The list, he said, includes the type of munition and the latitude and longitude of the expected location, “so that duly authorized experts may more easily locate, render safe, and dispose of possible coalition unexploded ordnance.”

Townsend said last month that he would seek a way for the military to help groups find bombs that didn’t detonate after they were dropped in coalition airstrikes in Mosul.

The military does not normally release that list of classified data, although there are ongoing international and U.S. programs, with millions of dollars in aid, that work to clean up explosives around the world, including minefields.

The coalition’s unexploded bombs are part of a wider problem in Mosul. The bulk of the explosives remaining around the city were hidden by ISIS fighters to be triggered by the slightest movement, even picking up a seemingly innocent child’s toy, lifting a vacuum cleaner or opening an oven door. The effort could continue wreaking destruction on Iraq’s second-largest city even though ISIS was defeated after a nine-month battle.

U.S. Embassy officials and contractors hired to root out the hidden explosives have described the extent of problem as unprecedented, saying ISIS littered the city with booby traps that will likely take years, if not decades, to uncover and clear.

Officials with the State Department’s conventional weapons destruction program said that right now they are focusing on areas in Iraq that have been liberated from Islamic State insurgents. But there are ongoing discussions with the military about getting similar data for unexploded bombs in Ramadi, Fallujah, Tikrit and other locations.