KIRKUK, Kurdistan Region – At least 10,000 booby traps have been defused by Kurdish bomb disposal teams since the start of the war with ISIS in August 2014, a Peshmerga bombs experts said.
“Since the beginning of the ISIS war in 2014, we have defused 10,000 bombs and booby traps left by ISIS. We defuse around 100 bombs on a daily basis in the liberated areas,” Zwer Mohammed, an officer from the Peshmerga bomb disposal teams, told Rudaw.
Many Peshmerga soldiers were killed by bombs and mines on the battlefields, planted by retreating ISIS forces to slow Kurdish advances.
Awat Dilshad, the brother of the most recent Peshmerga soldier killed by ISIS bombs, said that bombs near Peshmerga forntlines have to be removed, so that no more children -- like his nephew Daniel -- will become “fatherless.”
“I hope Peshmerga soldiers take care of these explosives in the battlefields.”
Abdulkhaliq Dilshad was killed by an ISIS bomb on the Daquq front in southern Kirkuk a few months ago.
When ISIS takes over a place, the first thing it does is to booby-trap its surroundings to prevent counter-attacks from opposing forces.
