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U.S. helps Iraq clear ‘historic’ amount of explosives
BAGHDAD — The wires protruding from the small, misshapen stuffed animal revealed the deadly boobytrap tucked inside.
For the people of Mosul, the sophisticated bomb was a reminder of how difficult it will be to return to homes littered with hidden explosives by Islamic State militants and dotted with the remnants of undetonated bombs dropped by the U.S.led coalition that still could blow up.
Washington at least is trying to ease a bit of the massive clean-up burden.
On Thursday, the top U.S. commander in Iraq said for the first time that the American military will help contractors and other officials locate unexploded bombs dropped by the coalition. U.S. Embassy officials have asked the coalition to declassify grid coordinates for bombs dropped in Iraq to help clear the explosives.
It may not be that simple, Gen. Stephen Townsend told a small group of reporters, “but we’ll find a way through that.”
“We’ll find a way to help them,” he said.
The coalition’s unexploded bombs are only a small part of Mosul’s problems. The bulk of the explosives have been hidden by Islamic State fighters to be triggered by the slightest movement, even picking up a children’s toy, lifting a vacuum cleaner, or opening an oven door. The effort could continue wreaking destruction on Iraq’s second largest city even as Islamic State was defeated after a nine-month battle.
U.S. Embassy officials and contractors hired to root out the hidden explosives use the same words to describe the devastation in western Mosul: Historic. Unprecedented. Exponentially worse than any other place.
“We use broad terms like historic because when you enter a dwelling, everything is suspect,” said the team leader in northern Iraq for Janus Global Operations, a contracting company hired to find and remove hidden explosive devices and unexploded bombs from Iraqi cities recaptured from the Islamic State group. “You can’t take anything at face value.”
The team leader asked that he not be identified by name because he and his teams continue working in Mosul and the company fears for their safety.
Some estimates suggest it may take 25 years to clear West Mosul of explosives. The bomb-removing team leader said those understate what is sure to be an enduring problem.
Normalcy may return to parts of west Mosul in a year, and perhaps after a decade many of the obvious explosives will be found. But other unexploded bombs and hidden devices will surface at construction sites and other locations for years and likely decades to come, he said.
As much as 90 percent of west Mosul’s old city has been reduced to ruins, destroyed by the Islamic State militants who occupied it for nearly three years and by the campaign of airstrikes and ground combat needed to retake the city.
For Muhammed Mustafa, a restaurant owner from west Mosul, the disaster is very personal.
Mustafa escaped Islamic State territory as Iraqi forces pushed through western Mosul earlier this year and is now living with extended family in the city’s east.
“When my neighborhood was liberated, I wanted to return and gather some belongings. On my street all I saw was destruction, except my home, thank God, but I found a written statement on the wall warning it was bobby-trapped,” he told The Associated Press. “When I saw it, I couldn’t stand.” Security forces in the area barred him from entering.
David Johnson, vice president for the Washington office of Janus Global Operations, said his workers are finding explosives where local residents would be most likely to trigger them, and are “seeing a level of sophistication and a number of improvised explosive devices that is literally without parallel.”
A retired Navy explosives specialist who served multiple tours in Iraq and Syria, he said his team is “facing something we’ve never seen before.”