Between Islamic State demolition and booby traps, U.S. airstrikes, and the Iraqi military's campaign to retake the city, Ramadi is a disaster zone. Once home to a million people, the capital of Anbar Province is now filled mostly with Iraqi troops, bomb squad personnel, and miles and miles of destruction, according to photographs and satellite images provided to The Associated Press by DigitalGlobe. Iraqi forces ousted ISIS from the city in January, AP says, "but the cost of winning Ramadi has been the city itself."
The images show that more than 3,000 buildings, 400 roads and bridges, Ramadi's electrical grid, and the city water system were destroyed or severely damaged by ISIS or the campaign to force out the militants. After ISIS was cleared from the city, families were allowed to return, then blocked when dozens of civilians died in explosives rigged up by ISIS. "The bombs are so costly and time-consuming to defuse that much of recently liberated Iraq is now unlivable," AP says. Read more about the destruction of Ramadi at AP, and get a look at some of the images in the AP video below. —Peter Weber
The Week
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