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What Isil had not destroyed already, US air strikes had bombed to oblivion.
The Telegraph was the first Western media organisation to enter the village, which has been liberated along with eight others on the road to Isil’s stronghold of Mosul.
At the start of the offensive on Monday, 400 Peshmerga troops from the Second Regiment stormed Badana, surprising the militants by taking the dusty path from the east rather than the tarmac road from the north.
It quickly became clear when assessing the damage that Isil had been preparing for the offensive for some months.
They had dug a one-mile-long World War One-style trench around one side of the village. On the other, sand-coloured blankets disguised barrels of TNT that lined both sides of the main road.
“Look at that black string hidden under the rock,” said Captain Hoshiar Harki, pointing to a wire so thin it was barely visible to the untrained eye. “We have found about 100 booby traps like this so far in 24 hours. There could be hundreds more,” he said.
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