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Iraq removes blast walls around Baghdad neighborhoods

Workers remove cement blast walls surrounding the Iraqi Foreign Ministry near Baghdad's Green Zone on December 23, 2018. (Photo by AFP)

Iraqi authorities have removed nearly 30 kilometers of concrete blast walls across Baghdad in the past six months in the wake of a significant improvement of security situation.

"Over the last six months, we removed 18,000 T-walls in Baghdad, including 14,000 in the Green Zone alone," said Staff Lieutenant General Mohammed al-Bayati, a top military advisor to Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi on Monday.

Hundreds of security checkpoints have been removed across the city over the past few months.

According to the Baghdad municipality, 600 streets that had been closed off to public access have been opened in the past six months. Among them are key routes crossing through Baghdad's Green Zone, the enclave where government buildings, UN agencies and embassies are located.

Since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, T-walls, thick barriers about six meters tall and one meter wide, have surrounded potential targets of car bombs or other assaults by militants.

The walls served to protect the city from years of violence and the fight against al-Qaeda and other foreign-backed militants.

The city has been recently the scene of almost daily bomb attacks, most of which have been claimed by the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group.


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