Two Iraqis killed in remnant explosive blast in Anbar
An improvised explosive device (IED)
Rawa (IraqiNews.com) Two Iraqi civilians were killed when an explosive device leftover from Islamic State’s occupation of Anbar province went off, a military source was quoted saying on Thursday
Alsumaria News quoted the source saying that two civilians were cleaning up their home in Rawa, a former Islamic State militants’ stronghold in western Anbar, but the house turned out to be booby-trapped, and exploded with them inside.
On Wednesday, an army officer and a shepherd were killed in the same city due to leftover explosive ordnance.Islamic State militants invaded several Iraqi cities in 2014 and proclaimed a self-styled Islamic “Caliphate”. An Iraqi government campaign, backed by a United States-led coalition managed to retake areas occupied by the militants, ending with Rawa, IS’s last bastion in the country, which was retaken in November.
Leftover explosives continue to pose a threat at areas seized back from the militants, occasionally leaving deaths among civilians and security memners, according to local news reports.
Fawzi Yassin, commander of the province’s civil defense directorate, told Alsumaria News in December that the service’s teams, over the past two years, cleared and destroyed more than 38.174 projectiles from areas recaptured by security forces.
Since 2015, United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) cleared 390 priority locations in Falluja and Ramadi in Anbar province, removing more than 2,600 explosive hazards from areas reclaimed from Islamic State.