Tag Archives: Explosives

Iraqis desperate to return to homes rigged with bombs by Islamic State

A member of a demining team searches for landmines in Khazer, Iraq

By John Davison

BASHIQA, Iraq (Reuters) – Khedr Selim trod gingerly through the rubble of his old home, desperate to move back in with his family after two years on the run, but terrified in case Islamic State fighters, driven out at last, had wired the house to explode.

Just days earlier two former residents of his hometown Bashiqa visited their house for the first time since fleeing two years ago. They were killed by a bomb rigged to the front door.

“It’s dangerous here. The explosives need to be cleared from the town before we can even clean up the rubble, let alone come back to live,” he said.

“But we can’t stay away much longer. We’ve been renting elsewhere for two years and I haven’t found work. Money is running out and we need to get home.”

Thousands of Iraqis who fled when Islamic State swept through swathes of Iraq in 2014 are returning to homes as a U.S.-backed campaign to roll back the self-proclaimed caliphate has recaptured outlying towns and villages near the group’s biggest bastion, Mosul.

But in their desperation to return home, many villagers have been killed or maimed by mines and booby traps left behind by fighters as they withdrew.

Of the buildings left standing in Bashiqa, scene of heavy fighting and air strikes as U.S.-backed Kurdish forces seized it from Islamic State in October, several are marked with graffiti: “Danger – TNT”. Many streets are blocked off because they have not been cleared.

Not only are buildings booby trapped, mine clearers say minefields stretch for tens of kilometers (miles) to the southeast of Bashiqa, roughly along the former frontier of Islamic State-held areas.

In a village along that line in the Khazer area southeast of Mosul, dozens of yellow stakes hammered into the soil mark where mines have been cleared along a path leading right up to the local school.

“ISIS (Islamic State) decided to lay… a defensive minefield, but most of the minefields go through the houses,” said Salam Mohammed, whose team from the international Mines Advisory Group (MAG) is working to clear the explosives.

“At the same time, they booby-trapped the houses for when people tried to return later.”

Mohammed said MAG had so far found more than 350 explosive devices in that village alone, which was recaptured earlier in the year. Work on much bigger towns like Bashiqa has only just started.

DESIGNED TO KILL

The landmines, mostly large metal cylinders made in Islamic State’s bomb factories and weighing as much as 35 kg, were designed to kill, not to maim, he said. Of 25 civilian casualties from explosives in the Khazer area in recent months, 16 died.

Mohammed stood above a hole on the roadside where a resident had stepped on a mine.

“It turned him into three pieces. This is his boot,” he said, pointing at a black hiking shoe still lying on the ground.

The danger fails to deter some people from returning from exile, however.

“We knew the area was mined when we came back, but we’d been renting a house in Khabat (district) for nearly two years and have no money left,” said 73-year-old farmer Hamid Zorab.

“We’ve no choice.”

The family’s return several months ago came at a high cost. Zorab’s son was killed when a bomb detonated outside his house nearby.

Mine clearers are working as fast as they can to make safe areas Islamic State has been driven from, but do not know how much time it will take. They advise families to stay away but sometimes to no avail.

The force of a child’s footstep will set off most mines and the explosions can destroy a vehicle, Mohammed said.

His team detonated a device they could not defuse or remove. Smoke from the deafening blast shot up several meters into the air.

In a home in a still heavily mined village, MAG workers taught children to recognize unexploded ordnance and booby traps, which could take almost any form – a rigged fridge, a piece of pipe by the road, a toy.

Khalil Khobyar had moved back with his young family.

“The kids are becoming experts in explosives,” he said.

(Reporting by John Davison; editing by Peter Graff)

U.S. counterterrorism agents arrest Michigan man with explosives

By Laila Kearney

(Reuters) – Federal counter terrorism agents have arrested a 29-year-old Michigan man accused of illegally purchasing an arsenal of explosives and other devices capable of mass casualties, according to a criminal complaint filed this week.

Sebastian Gregerson, a Detroit resident who also goes by the name Abdurrahman Bin Mikaayl, was arrested on Monday by officials with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s counter terrorism squad, according to the complaint.

Gregerson is accused of unregistered possession of a destructive device and the unlicensed receipt of explosive materials, the complaint said.

His court-appointed attorney could not immediately be reached for comment.

The FBI began its investigation in April 2015, when an anonymous informant alerted the agency that Gregerson said he was in possession of grenades and bazookas, the complaint said.

Over the past 16 months, Gregerson bought weapons, ammunition and tactical gear including a car pistol holster, hundreds of rounds of ammunition for an AK-47 rifle and commercial-grade road spikes to disable vehicles, the complaint said.

He also bought several training manuals and subscriptions to publications about how to evade capture and “survive dangerous situations,” it said.

In recorded phone conversations with an undercover FBI agent, Gregerson discussed making homemade grenades and ways to attack buildings and law enforcement by using the explosive devices, the complaint said.

It was not clear from the complaint whether Gregerson said he planned to carry out such an attack.

Gregerson was arrested on Sunday, when he met with undercover agents at a gas station and traded a Beretta M9 handgun as payment for several grenades, the complaint said. He was not licensed to receive explosive materials, it said.

Gregerson is scheduled for a detention hearing on Thursday at the Theodore Levin U.S. Courthouse in Detroit, court documents said.

(Reporting by Laila Kearney; Editing by David Gregorio)

Islamic State mines kill dozens of civilians returning to Ramadi

Military Vehicle Iraq

By Stephen Kalin

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Explosives planted by Islamic State have killed dozens of Iraqi civilians who returned to Ramadi despite warnings that much of the western city remains unsafe nearly four months after its recapture from the militants.

Tens of thousands of displaced residents have returned to the Anbar provincial capital in the past two months, mostly from camps east of the city where they took refuge prior to the army’s advance late last year.

A shortage of experts trained in dismantling the explosives has slowed efforts to restore security, but that has not stopped people from responding to calls from local religious and government leaders to go back home.

The Anbar governor’s office, which is overseeing much of the effort to restore Ramadi, declined requests for comment.

But the United Nations said it had learned from the authorities that 49 people have been killed and 79 others wounded in Ramadi since the beginning of February. Those figures are “almost certainly an underestimation,” it said.

“The U.N. is deeply worried about the safety of returning families and the widespread infestation of many neighborhoods with unexploded devices and booby traps,” Lise Grande, U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Iraq, told Reuters.

“The responsible thing is to clear these areas as quickly as possible using the most up-to-date, modern and professional methods. Anything else just risks too much.”

De-mining is seen as a critical first step in returning civilians to Ramadi, which a U.N. team said last month suffers from destruction worse than anywhere else in Iraq after months of fighting that saw Islamic State bomb attacks and devastating U.S.-led coalition air strikes.

A U.S. de-mining company was contracted last month to remove explosives and train Iraqis to dismantle the devices planted by Islamic State in Ramadi, 100 km (60 miles) west of Baghdad.

Sources in Ramadi said another Western company was expected to help with de-mining efforts and Iraqi companies are also now competing for potentially lucrative government contracts.

Still there is just not enough expertise to keep pace with the return of civilians, said Mohamed Ali, a tribal fighter who helps dismantle explosives.

In addition to littering Ramadi’s streets with bombs, Islamic State has also planted them in residences, hiding them under rugs and other fixtures or connecting them to the power grid so they detonate when residents attempt to restore electricity.

“One house in al-Bakr neighborhood exploded (on Monday), killing its owner,” said Ali. “The man returned after explosives had been removed from his house and he started clearing the rubble. While he was moving the cooking gas canister, a bomb stashed under it exploded.”

A security officer stationed in northern Ramadi said he had forbidden civilians from walking around their neighborhoods after several people were killed as they inspected nearby destruction.

The influx of refugees is unlikely to slow, driven by the desperation of displaced people and political rivalries within the Sunni community.

Two local government sources said political and religious figures had ignored warnings against rushing civilians’ return, accusing them of seeking financial gain by launching reconstruction projects before others.

More than 3.4 million Iraqis across the country have been displaced by violence according to U.N. statistics, most of them from the minority Sunni Arab community.

(Additional reporting by Saif Hameed, Writing by Stephen Kalin; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Authorities Investigating Batches of Suspicious Cell Phone Purchases in Missouri

The FBI is investigating multiple reports of bulk purchases of prepaid cell phones in Missouri.

According to various local media reports, law enforcement officials in at least six Missouri towns reported that customers bought a large quantity of the prepaid phones at local Walmart stores.

Prepaid cell phones are popular for a number of reasons, including that they can be bought with cash and don’t require a contract or a credit check like many wireless plans. People can pay for the minutes as they use them, and buy more calling time whenever they need it. But the phones are also attractive in other circles because they’re difficult to trace and can be easily disposable.

Criminals have been known to use prepaid phones, often called burners, to avoid police detection because they can be purchased anonymously and don’t require disclosing a lot of personal information. Terrorists have also been known to use cell phones to detonate explosives.

The first batch of bulk cell phone buys was on Dec. 5, when buyers reportedly went to a Walmart in Lebanon around 4 a.m. and bought 59 cell phones. Law enforcement officials in Macon, Ava, Jefferson City, Columbia and Cape Girardeau also reported similar phone buys on that weekend. Fox News reported that more than 200 prepaid cell phones were purchased in total at the stores.

The purchases came days after a husband and wife killed 14 people and injured 21 more in a Dec. 2 mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, in what has been called an act of terrorism.

The American public has been on high alert since that attack.

Searches for concealed carry permits, which allow people to carry hidden handguns in public, have surged to record levels, and a Public Religion Research Institute survey released last week found 47 percent of all Americans fear they or someone in their family will be a terrorism victim.

Americans have long been encouraged to report any kind of suspicious activity through the Department of Homeland Security’s “If You See Something, Say Something” campaign. That’s exactly what the Walmart stores and local law enforcement authorities appear to be doing.

Speaking to the Kansas City Star, FBI spokesperson Bridget Patton said law enforcement officials were “acting out of an abundance of caution” in alerting the FBI about the phone buys.

“We have seen similar purchases of bulk cell phones in the past, and it has been concluded that these transactions were unrelated to terrorism,” Patton told the newspaper.

The Kansas City Star also spoke to law enforcement officials in Macon. Sheriff’s Sgt. Curt Glover noted that people have been known to purchase burner phones and resell them at higher prices.

“I do not feel there’s an immediate threat to the community,” Glover told the newspaper. “This has been going on for the last 15 years. They sell them and make a whole lot more money.”

There weren’t any arrests this month because buying a lot of cell phones at once isn’t illegal, and retired FBI Agent Jeff Lanza told the Kansas City Star that a link to terrorism appears unlikely.

“If you were planning to use those in a terrorist act, you wouldn’t be buying in bulk and attracting attention to yourself,” Lanza told the newspaper. “It would be a stupid way to start buying things to be used as bomb detonators because the first thing people do is call the police.”

The FBI has also been notified about a theft of propane canisters in Kansas City, Patton told the Kansas City Star, but the bureau is leaving the investigations of those thefts to local authorities.

The fact that propane can be used in improvised explosive devices raised some alarm bells, particularly because they reportedly occurred around the time of the prepaid phone purchases. But there’s currently no evidence suggesting the propane thefts and phone buys were related.

Americans are asked to remain vigilant and tell police if they notice suspicious activity.