Controlled explosions threaten World Heritage site in Iraq

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Controlled explosions at an ammunition dump at Hatra, south of Mosul, are threatening to seriously damage an important ancient site that is on Unesco’s World Heritage list. Colonel Paul Woerner, the senior civil affairs officer in the US embassy in Baghdad responsible for Iraq’s northern cities, has been trying to control what he calls a “dismaying situation”.

Colonel Woerner described the task in an email to the University of Chicago’s Iraq crisis newslist: “The basic problem is exploding ordnance near the site, which is causing a deteriorating situation to the structure [of the ancient buildings]. A contractor is finishing off stockpiles of ordnance from an ammo dump left over from the former Iraqi Army. It is no easy task to relocate an ammo dump.”