Unexploded IEDs & white phosphorus: 15 years after US troops came, war still everywhere in Fallujah

Ruptly traveled to Fallujah, a city that has become synonymous with every upheaval that has struck Iraq since 2003, to find a populace psychologically and physically scarred by the fallout from the ill-judged Western intervention.

Spared during the initial offensive that toppled Saddam Hussein, the city, 65 kilometers west of Baghdad, became the focal point of the subsequent anti-American insurgency, and was bombarded and captured in the bloodiest battles for US troops since Vietnam. It later became a hothouse of radical Islamism, and was one of the first major cities captured by Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) in January 2014. It was won back by the Iraqi Army two years later in yet another devastating assault on a city that was once home to 300,000 but now houses about half that number.