The extremists seized the dam in August of 2014, provoking fears that they could blow it up and unleash a deluge on the densely populated Tigris River valley, as well as on the cities of Mosul and Baghdad, potentially killing thousands of people.
Kurdish Peshmerga forces recaptured the dam two weeks later, eliminating the threat of the demolition. However, IS militants stole all the equipment necessary to maintain the dam and chased away the technicians, leaving the edifice bedridden with structural flaws, according to US Army Colonel Steve Warren, the US-led coalition’s spokesman.
“There was a steady grouting schedule that had been maintained for a long time. When that stopped, obviously the deterioration of the dam increased accordingly,” Warren said as quoted by Reuters.
#AllTheNews 