29/01/2023 Iraq
“If you ever come across anything suspicious like this item, please do not pick it up, contact your local law e enforcement agency for assistance”.
Sarah Al-Arshani-Selima Hussain
At its height in 2014, ISIS planted many IEDs across Iraq but mostly in and around Mosul. The homemade explosive devices can be set off by the slightest touch or movement. Now, trained deminers are risking their lives searching and destabilizing thee explosives. As the militant group ISIS tried to take over Iraq in 2014, they left behind IEDs. The prominence of these improvised explosive devices around Iraq has meant that highly trained deminers are now going around searching for and dismantling thousands of IEDS. “Our job has a saying that goes, “There’s no room for mistakes to happen twice. Because the first mistake will be death,” Falah Hassan, a reminder, told Insider.
ISIS planted a majority of the IEDs almost a decade ago
Hassan told Insider that most of these IEDs were planted by ISIS in 2014. At their height, the militant group controlled as much as 40% of Iraq. The majority of IEDs have been found in and around Mosul, which ISIS had once deemed its capitol. “This was to prevent the [Iraqi] army from advancing during military operations and also to prevent civilians and residents from leaving the city of Mosul,” Hassan said. Insider followed Hassan and his team as they demined a site in several miles outside of Mosul. The team met at a base where local NGO groups that specialize in demining met before driving to the village of Abzakh, about 240 miles north of Baghdad. The team starts by searching for the precise location of an IED with metal detectors. Hassan told Insider that the equipment used in the search and stabilization efforts is “heavy,” and affects workers’ bodies. But beyond that workers risk accidentally detonating the devices that are typically buried underground and can detonate by the slightest touch. “IEDs can be detonated in three different ways. First, by a timer, and second, by an initiated order — by a wire or wirelessly using a phone. Third and last is by the victims themselves, either by pressure or movement,” Hassan said.
Biography of a Bomb
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