Heroic Perthshire aid worker reaches milestone in Iraq land mine mission
A heroic Perthshire aid worker leading the fight to clear deadly land mines in Iraq has helped a Scottish charity destroy over 1000 explosive devices this year.
Army veteran Frank Philip also told how he dodged Iranian missiles after an army general linked to terror attacks was assassinated in January.
Frank (61) has spent the year avoiding danger in the war-ravaged state while clearing explosives with the HALO Trust as a programme manager in Baghdad.
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The ex-serviceman of 30 years found himself in the line of fire when Tehran tried to avenge the death of powerful Qasem Soleimani, who was killed in a US drone strike.
The father-of-three revealed how some of his team drove past the smoking wreckage of Solemani’s convoy after it had been destroyed at Baghdad airport.
Iran soon started launching its own rockets into the region, forcing Frank to relocate.
Over the past year his HALO team has cleared 750,000 square metres using armoured machines, destroying 700 IEDs and 400 unexploded grenades, mortar bombs and artillery shells.
Frank, who lives in Kinloch Rannoch, and his team cleared 700 improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and 400 unexploded grenades and mortars this year.
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They also reached a landmark 1000 IEDs wiped out since starting the demining operations in Iraq in August 2018.
“The year 2020 has been an unusual one for us,” said Frank, who is now in the Kurdish region of Iraq.
“We had a bad start with the Iranian-American tensions over the death of Major General Qasem Soleimani.
“Some of my guys actually drove past the burning vehicles, coming out of the airport after returning from their Christmas leave.
“We’d been instructed not to go into Baghdad because the Iranians had vowed to respond so we made the decision to relocate to Erbil in the north.
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“Of course, no sooner had we got here than the Iranians launched their ballistic missile strikes against American bases in Anbar province and at Erbil Airport, right beside where I am at the moment.
“That wasn’t expected and made for a fun start of the year for us. To be fair, I didn’t even notice but my daughter phoned me up in the middle of the night and told me I’d been attacked.”
He added: “It was bad for a long period of time with attacks on US bases. There were constant attacks against contractors for the US troops, with logistic convoys getting hit on the main supply routes.
"There was a lot of indirect fire happening – usually rockets, rather than mortars.
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“There’s no getting around it is a hostile environment.