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About eight months later, Army Spc. Erik W. Hayes would have been home.

Instead, Hayes, who grew up in Thurmont and Harney, was killed on Nov. 29, 2004, when an improvised explosive device exploded near his vehicle in Miqdadiyah, Iraq. He was 24.

On Saturday, friends, family and others gathered to honor him at the dedication of a sign on a bridge running over the Monocacy River on Md. 140, outside Emmitsburg.

After the ceremony, Daniel Hopson of Oklahoma, who served with Hayes in the Army in Iraq, remembered his friend as quiet and humble.

Erik was not a social butterfly, Hopson said.

But he was reliable and mature for his age, the kind of soldier who would volunteer to do something because it had to be done, he said.

Speaking at the ceremony, Hopson remembered sitting on the roof of an Iraqi police station with Hayes on the day he died.

Hopson asked where he would go on vacation if he could go anywhere in the world.

Hayes said he would go home and work several jobs to help take care of his brother, Bradley, who had been seriously injured in a car crash several years earlier.

The members of the platoon loved Hayes, Hopson said.

The love that all of us had for him, I cant even express it, he said.

Hayes graduated in 1998 from Living Word Academy in Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania.

When he died, The News-Post reported that he had enlisted in the Army five days before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Timothy Grossman, who also served with Hayes, remembered his friends generosity, his easy way of speaking, and his wisdom that seemed far beyond his 24 years.

Grossman said he was grateful to see the crowd at the event.

We must do this for him, Grossman said.

About 100 people came to the State Highway Administration property near the bridge, which carries Md. 140 over the river between Emmitsburg and Taneytown in Carroll County.

After the ceremony, Hayes mother, Debora Reckley, said it meant a lot that so many people came out to honor her son, many years after he died.

Frederick County Executive Jan Gardner spoke at the ceremony, along with County Council President Bud Otis, Delegate William Folden, and several county commissioners from Carroll County. Councilman Kirby Delauter was the master of ceremonies.

Folden is an Army veteran and sponsored a bill, which was signed in 2015, that allows families to ask the states Department of Transportation to name structures after their loved ones.

It was the first bill he filed after arriving in Annapolis, Folden said, and was intended to help remember both people who have served and the families left behind.

This bill is about honoring them. Honor them every day, he told the crowd.

As the ceremony was wrapping up, officials unveiled the brown sign with white lettering that notes Hayes name, his service in Iraq, and the date of his death.

His father, Douglas Hayes, said Erik had spent almost four years in the Army, and had about eight months left on his tour when he was killed.

Hayes said the sign was a good way to honor his son.

That will be Eriks bridge now, he said.

Follow Ryan Marshall on Twitter: @RMarshallFNP.

Excerpt from:
Thirteen years after Frederick County soldier's death in Iraq, a bridge bears his name - Frederick News Post (subscription)

Handicap International began its weapons clearance operations in Iraq in January 2017. Since the start of the year, the organization has destroyed more than 2,000 explosive remnants of war in areas affected by heavy fighting.

Outside Kirkuk, Iraq, Handicap International weapons clearance experts dressed in protective blue clothing inspect a field, under the curious gaze of locals. This area was heavily contaminated by bombing in 2003, says Nizar Abdul Karim, technical manager of Handicap Internationals weapons clearance operations in Iraq. We are dealing explosive remnants of war from more than a decade of fighting. There are still a lot of cluster bombs from the beginning of the Iraq War, for example.

Slightly further away, closer to a village, one of the Handicap International risk education teams is hard at work. Before 2014, more than 70 families lived in this village, but they had to flee, says Nizar. This area has seen heavy fighting and we are just a few miles from the front lines. Before people return to the area, our teams mark dangerous zones heavily contaminated with explosive remnants of war to help people avoid injury.

Wherever they operate, Handicap International tries to work as closely with local people. Youre doing very important work, a villager tells Nizar. Im glad youve put up these signs around the village so that people know that they cant farm this field or even approach it before you come to clear it of explosives.

One woman says: I returned to the village five or six months ago, with my family. When we arrived outside our house, we found a shell in the garden. Handicap Internationals teams came and destroyed it. Since then, I feel confident enough to let my children play outside again.

Handicap International has destroyed more than 2,000 explosive remnants of war in Iraq in just two months. But the road ahead is long: After several decades of conflict, Iraq is one of the most contaminated countries in the world.

PRESS CONTACTS

Mica Bevington +1 (240) 450-3531 +1 (202) 290-9264 mbevington@handicap-international.us

Michele Lunsford +1 (240) 450-3538 +1 (814) 386-3853 mlunsford@handicap-international.us

DONOR SERVICES

+1 (301) 891-2138 donorservices@handicap-international.us

See the original post:
Iraq: More than 2000 Explosives Destroyed in Two Months - ReliefWeb

BAGHDAD (REUTERS) - An Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militant linked to the deadly 2015 attack on French weekly Charlie Hebdo could be still be alive, the Iraqi military said on Saturday (April 15).

Boubaker el-Hakim was reported by American defence officials to have been killed in November, in a US drone strike in Raqqa, ISIS' de facto capital in Syria.

Iraqi intelligence supplied information to the Syrian airforce to carry out a series of strikes on ISIS headquarters and hideouts in Syria, including one believed to belong to el-Hakim, an Iraqi military statement said.

Aircraft from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's airforce targeted several locations in Raqqa and Albu Kamal, near the Iraqi border, said the statement, without indicating the location of el-Hakim's headquarters or the date of the raids.

An Iraqi military spokesman told Reuters el-Hakim's headquarters were destroyed but it wasn't clear if he was killed.

In 2015, Iraq and Syria established a joint committee with Russia and Iran, Assad's main foreign backers, to share intelligence about ISIS.

El-Hakim was believed to have been involved in planning the January 2015 attack on Charlie Hebdo, a weekly known for its satirical covers ridiculing political and religious leaders.

Two Islamist militants broke into an editorial meeting of the weekly, raking it with bullets, killing 17 people. Another militant later killed a policewoman and took hostages at a supermarket, killing four before police shot him dead.

ISIS declared a "caliphate" spanning parts of Iraq and Syria after it captured the Iraqi city of Mosul in mid-2014.

The hardline Sunni group has since lost most cities it captured in Iraq and its fighters are now surrounded in parts of Mosul by US-backed Iraqi government forces.

A US-backed offensive is also under way to capture Raqqa, involving a Syrian Kurdish-Arab militia alliance.

See the article here:
ISIS militant linked to Charlie Hebdo attack could still be alive: Iraq - The Straits Times

Seven-year-old Iraqi boy was born with an extremely rare condition where his conjoined twin didn't fully form and was partially absorbed, resulting in eight additional limbs in Karam.

However, after his father brought him India for a surgery, all of Karam's unnecessary limbs were surgically removed in a three-stage process.

afp

The operation took place in Noida's Jaypee Hospital and has been termed as the world's first. Currently, there are only five or six such cases known in the world, making the task even trickier for doctors, said Gaurav Rathore, an orthopaedic consultant who was also a part of Karam's surgical team.

afp

"He was brought to us when he was just two weeks old and his condition was quite unique. Most of the surgeries we performed had not been attempted before," said Dr Rathore.

In the three-stage operation, the doctors first removed Karam's additional limbs protruding from his stomach before correcting a cardiac complication. The final stage removed all of Karam's extra limbs.

afp

The doctors added that the boy would have to undergo procedures in future to correct other anomalies.

With inputs from AFP

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Excerpt from:
Baby From Iraq Born With Eight Limbs Successfully Goes Under Surgery In Noida - Indiatimes.com

Ireland has pledged 6m in humanitarian support for severe crises in Yemen and Iraq.

Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan and Minister of State Joe McHugh say Ireland will providetwo-thirds of the aid (4m) to the United Nations Humanitarian Pooled Fund in Yemen.

This is in response to the needs of nearly 19 million people there - two-thirds of the population - affected by two years of civil war.

In February this year, the UN appealed for US$2.1bn (1.97bn) to avert famine for 12 million people.

Minister Flanagan said: "The scale of humanitarian need in the world today is unprecedented and with the severe situation in Syria in the world headlines, crises like that in Yemen are in danger of being forgotten.

"The UN has warned that Yemen is on the brink of famine - a famine caused, not by natural disaster or drought, but by conflict.

"It is crucial that the international community works together to alleviate the suffering of the people of Yemen through humanitarian assistance and working to support a peaceful solution to the conflict."

In March 2015, the president of Yemen, Abdo Rabbu Mansour Hadi, was forced to flee the country by Houthi rebels.

The Zaidi Shia Houthis were supported by elements of Yemen's military loyal to the country's former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh.

In response, Saudi Arabia formed a coalition of a dozen countries to restore Yemen's internationally recognised government to power.

The European Council on Foreign Relations says: "Two years since the launch of the Saudi-led campaign, peace in the troubled country seems as far off as ever.

"President Hadi and his prime minister, Ahmed Obaid bin Daghir, now govern from the port city of Aden, which they declared the temporary capital."

An additional 2m is being given to the Iraq Humanitarian Pooled Fund in response to the needs of almost 11 million Iraqi people affected by violence linked to ISIL, and the counter-insurgency operation launched by the Iraqi Government.

This pooled fund is managed by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), who will disburse the funding to meet critical humanitarian needs.

Minister of State Joe McHugh said: "Ireland's funding to the Iraq Humanitarian Pooled Fund will provide assistance to people affected by the crisis in Iraq including families and children, who are often the worst affected by conflict.

"Providing funding through Pooled Funds means that the most urgent needs can be met quickly, be they for food, shelter, health or protection for the most vulnerable".

Ireland provided 4.1m in humanitarian funding to the crisis in Yemen in 2016, and gave 2.5m last year to the crisis in Iraq through the Iraq Humanitarian Pooled Fund.

Read more:
Ireland announces 6m in humanitarian aid for Yemen and Iraq - Newstalk 106-108 fm