Four dogs and their Yazidi handlers are sniffing out mines left by Islamic State in the towns, villages and the countryside of northern Iraq when they were run out of town four years ago. In addition to sniffing out actual explosives, the small team of German and Belgian shepherds also searches for rubber, metal and batteries – some of the key ingredients in homemade improvised explosive devices, according to The Guardian. The dog team currently is sniffing out an 8 square kilometer piece of land near Tal Afar that was used as a barrier minefield by retreating ISIS fighters in 2017. There are believed to be some 3,000 square kilometers of federal land in Iraq that still need to be cleared of unexploded homemade mines, affecting some 8.5 million people living nearby. The dogs cover about 1,500 square meters a day, meaning they will have job security for a long time.
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