ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Villages captured by Peshmerga forces in the offensive to retake Mosul from ISIS are riddled with bombs, booby traps and underground tunnels, a Peshmerga general told Rudaw English.
“ISIS militants had hidden themselves inside tunnels, wearing suicide belts to ambush the Peshmerga,” said General Dedaman Khoorshid Tawfiq, commander of the Khazir Front. “We faced militants wearing suicide belts inside tunnels and we killed them.”
He explained that the tunnels were underneath buildings and alongside roads, varying in size from incredibly narrow and claustrophobic to what Tawfiq described as a “five star hotel -- very wide, with a bedroom, kitchen, television and a computer inside.”
ISIS has reportedly built tunnels throughout the villages and cities it has conquered, to use in battle against Iraqi and Peshmerga forces, the very same guerrilla tactics that Gaza-based Palestinian group Hamas has used against Israeli forces and which Vietcong resorted to against US troops during the Vietnam war.
Tawfiq explained that displaced people returning to their homes in towns and villages liberated by the Peshmerga in the Khazir region remain in great danger from explosives planted by ISIS.
“There are a lot of IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and roadside bombs,” he said.
He gave examples of two villages, Arab-populated Chemakal and Tulabank, which is a village of Kakai Kurdish minority.
He said that in Tulabank more than 1,200 IEDs were defused and double that number still remain, while in Chemakol there were few IEDs but 80 percent of the houses were booby-trapped with explosives. Nine civilians returning to their homes were killed in that village, he said.
The Peshmerga have liberated many villages since beginning the Mosul offensive 10 days ago, Tawfiq said. Villages that still remain under ISIS have been completely surrounded by the Peshmerga, he said.
“They have only two options: either they surrender themselves or they will be killed,” he warned. “They will most likely fight than surrender,” he said.
“We expected that they would resist strongly because this is their first line of defense,” Tawfiq said. “The biggest weapon in the fight in wars is belief. We strongly believe in our cause. Our tactics and planning were very precise and were implemented on the ground effectively.”
