Sharing the knowledge - a munitions training session
Posted on 09/27/2006 1:36:56 PM PDT by NYer
It may not be quite what you expect - a team of Iraqi Kurds teaching explosives clearance techniques in the bombed-out villages of southern Lebanon - but here they are.
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Sharing the knowledge - a munitions training session
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The men have been flown out by the British charity Mines Awareness Group (MAG), the only non-commercial munitions clearance body in Lebanon, a country still littered with unexploded devices more than a month after the recent war with Israel.
"Hundreds of thousands of civilian lives are at risk," said Nick Guest, MAG's Technical Operations Manager.
"The important thing after this conflict, any conflict, is to get team leaders on the ground, as quickly as possible, to get rid of unexploded materials in homes and villages before people are killed.
Sense of speed
"All too often precious time is wasted selecting local volunteers, then painstakingly training them.
"We think it makes sense for locals we've trained in other conflict areas to share their know-how elsewhere. That way ordnance can begin to be cleared as soon as possible."
MAG first started this programme in Kosovo after the war.
They sent MAG-trained explosives experts from Cambodia to train Kosovars.
Now 19 Iraqis are in southern Lebanon. I met up with some of them in the lush orange fields of in Yohmour village.
"Iraq, Cambodia, Lebanon... whatever the conflict zone, civilians suffer in similar ways. That's why we're here now to help."
At risk
Salaam Muhammad, a moustached, 40-something Iraqi Kurd, was supervising a group of Lebanese volunteers, sifting through the leaves and earth, on the look-out for unexploded devices.
"We learned a lot during Iraq's war of 2003," Salaam told me.
 People are keen to return home after a conflict but munitions remain
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"How to react to emergencies. How to safely identify, remove and detonate unexploded ordnance. The situation here is very similar.
"Displaced people return to their homes after a conflict. They don't realise their lives are still at risk because of explosives left in their villages.
"My Iraqi team is now passing on their expertise to the Lebanese. Then they can take care of themselves."
MAG works alongside the United Nations and a Lebanese advisory body to decide where to best focus their work.
Cluster bomblets
No-one knows just how much unexploded ordnance there is in southern Lebanon.
Estimates range from tens to hundreds of thousands of unexploded cluster bomblets and submunitions. The UN warns it may take two years to clear them.
The Israeli military says its aim was to hit Hezbollah hard, never to target civilians.
But Israel regards southern Lebanon as Hezbollah's heartland and bombed it accordingly.
Unexploded Israeli munitions now lie on the roadside, in the gardens and fields of the decimated villages here.
The devices tend to be small in size, so often remain undetected until it's too late.
For explosives clearance groups it is a race against time. The Lebanese are in a hurry to return to normal life.
Dilemma
Trees are laden with apples, oranges, olives and plums. Farmers face a terrible dilemma: life over livelihood.
Do they keep a safe distance from bomb-contaminated land, allowing produce to rot or should they risk their lives, salvaging their harvest?
An estimated 70% of families rely on agriculture in southern Lebanon.
They say the cost of the war, including the loss of livestock, crops and damage to equipment amounts to several hundred million dollars.
So, farmers are desperate to get back to their fields and families are anxious to send children safely to school.
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Looks like another typical day at the office.
That's an accident waiting to happen.
Like catching a foul ball.
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While they're cleaning the residue, they need to clean up the residue Hizbollah, else there'll be more dangerous residue. And someone needs to tell the photographers those things are dangerous. On the other hand, if a child dies, it's another Israeli atrocity photo op.
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