How to Clear A Town Filled With Booby Traps

A Stryker sits in the foreground as a plume of dark smoke from a 500-pound bomb blast rises into the air during a clearing operation in Bya'a in southern Diyala province.

Fighting Bombs With Bombs -- Stars And Stripes

Servicemembers find explosives-laden city is better handled by air

BYA’A, Iraq — The "Husky" mine-clearing vehicle rolled into this southern Diyala province village as one hefty piece of machinery. Hours later, it was towed out in damaged sections by a recovery team.

Two mines destroyed the vehicle as it was freeing up a passage within this small village on the Tigris River.

Nearby, numerous roadside bombs and booby-trapped homes rigged with homemade explosives were found. It turned out that the abandoned village of roughly 30 homes was heavily fortified with bombs believed to be planted by fleeing al-Qaida in Iraq fighters.

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My Comment: To save the village .... we had to destroy it. I think I heard that somewhere before (i.e. Vietnam). Fortunately, this time around the circumstances are different.