Millions of mines block allies' path

Allied troops invading Iraq will face millions of landmines scattered across the country, some of which were planted by US forces during the last war, military officials said today.

Specially-trained mine clearing soldiers are expected to be among the first to cross the border to help deactivate the explosives and free the path for a full invasion.

Iraq is one of the world’s most heavily mined countries with devices left from the Iran-Iraq war, the 1991 Gulf War and conflicts with the Kurds in the north of the country.

Captain Raphael Lopez, a US commander of one of the mine clearing units, said Saddam Hussein had planted fresh devices since the 1991 conflict.

“He’s got about 10 million mines in his inventory,” Captain Lopez told the Wall Street Journal. “His arsenal is pretty diverse.”

They include non-metallic and wooden box mines that can escape detection and booby-trapped mines that have a second detonator that explodes if the first is disarmed.

Most of the devices are expected to be within 10 miles of the Kuwaiti border and surrounding Baghdad.

The US scattered 118,000 landmines in Iraq and Kuwait in 1991.

They were designed to self-destruct or deactivate after a few months but experts said that did not always happen.

Kenneth Bacon, a Pentagon official during the Clinton administration, said he expected some of the US devices to still be active.

In Kuwait 84 people died clearing mines and other unexploded bombs left during the last conflict.

The US and Iraq were two of a handful of countries that refused to sign the 1997 international treaty banning the use of landmines.

Mines killed 12 US troops and injured 69 during the 1991 war.

Then, the allies missed most of the mine fields by attacking Iraq through the desert from the west, an option they are unlikely to have this time with most of the forces massed to the south in Kuwait.