It’s been apparent at least since the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 that the Mosul Dam, Iraq’s largest, could spell devastation for Iraq due to a combination of faulty construction, governmental indifference, and an ongoing civil insurrection. Were it to collapse, it would lead to the largest human-induced loss of life in history. (For more on this problem, see my coverage here and here.)
The conquests in 2014 by what used to be known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), now known just as the Islamic State, have dramatically shown that other dams in Iraq can also pose problems, if not on so catastrophic a scale.
First, when ISIS seized Fallujah in January 2014, it also took control of the Fallujah Dam, which is on the Euphrates River, and proceeded to manipulate it for its purposes. Hamza Mustafa of Asharq Al-Awsat quoted a pro-government militia leader a few months later, after Baghdad government forces managed to recapture the barrage, explained ISIS’s tactics:
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