On the wide, flat plain of the Sinjar district of northern Iraq, Naif Khalaf Qassim lets his dog, an eight-year-old Belgian shepherd, range across the dry earth on a 30-metre leash until Branco stops and sits, tail wagging, looking towards his handler with enthusiasm.
Branco has detected something underground and, when the mine-clearing team is brought in to investigate, they find an improvised explosive device (IED), known locally as a VS500.
It is about 30cm (1ft) wide, with a plastic casing and a central pressure pad. The VS500 is not the name Islamic State give the device; no one knows that. All that is certain is that it is one of thousands produced when the terror group held sway over this part of Iraq and commandeered plastics factories in their Mosul base, forcing the workers to make souped-up versions of the Italian-made VS50 landmine.
🐶 Branco and X-Lang are part of an elite team leading a groundbreaking sniff-search for the deadly legacy of ISIS in #Iraq 🇮🇶.
✍️ @davidmbarnett visited Iraq to find our more about our work with highly trained improvised mine detection dogs — read his story in the @guardian ⤵️
— MAG (Mines Advisory Group) (@MAGsaveslives) July 26, 2021
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Source: The Guardian/Mines Advisory Group – Twitter