HARI SREENIVASAN: But first:
The de facto capital of the
Islamic State, Raqqa, in Syria

fell yesterday to
U.S.-backed forces.

However, the largest
city the militants once
held was Mosul in Iraq.

They were ousted from it in July
after a brutal 10-month-long
fight that killed thousands.

Now a new major task: finding
and destroying the ISIS mines,
booby-traps and bombs that

litter the city.

Special correspondent Marcia
Biggs reports from Iraq.

MARCIA BIGGS: It was once
a center of learning for
over 6,000 students of
technology, agriculture,

and medicine.

Today, Mosul Technical
Institute's classrooms
are burnt to the ground,
laboratories reduced

to rubble, and books
charred and shredded.

It's one of the city's
five universities ravaged
by the Islamic State
and the battle to oust

it.

Now that the battle is over,
a new danger looms, the trail
of land mines and booby-traps

left by ISIS.

So this is the wire, and
this is where it was buried.

CHRISTIAN, Janus Global: Yes,
they would cut the asphalt,
and then they lay the wire in

and put the main charge here.

MARCIA BIGGS: We spent the day
with Christian, a team leader
from Janus Global, a security

and risk management firm hired
by the U.S. government to
sweep and clear major areas

of unexploded
ordnance and mines.

He's not allowed to show
his face or use his last
name, for security reasons.

CHRISTIAN: There's actually
two more on that road before
we get to the target building

that have to be excavated
and/or rendered safe.

MARCIA BIGGS: So, the first
building you have to clear, you
have got to get rid of the IEDs

on the road to that building?

CHRISTIAN: Yes.

MARCIA BIGGS: It's
a long process.

CHRISTIAN: It is, but that's
what makes it interesting.

MARCIA BIGGS: The United States
has sunk $30 million this
year into clearing former ISIS

territories all
over Northern Iraq.

Under this program, Janus has
already cleared 727 buildings,
removing 3,000 IEDs, which

they say ISIS was producing
on assembly lines at
an industrial scale.

But State Department officials
and experts say the number of
unexploded ordnance in Mosul

itself is unprecedented.

What's your first line
of attack, in terms of
trying to clear Mosul?

CHRISTIAN: Our priority
is more the community,
rather than the individual,
you know, infrastructure.

You have got schools, power,
sewer, water, so that the area
can accept people back into

it.

And then, once this
stabilization phase is
over, we can move into
the individual homes,

so that they can be safer.

MARCIA BIGGS: Clearing Mosul
is a process that they say
could take years, even decades.

So Janus is training local
Iraqis to do the job, sending
them out as a front-line search

team, then investigating
and removing any suspicious
items themselves.

CHRISTIAN: We're not going
to be here the whole time, so
when we -- it's our time to

leave, they will have the
capacity built from us, and the
mentoring we have done, so that

they can do it on their own.

MARCIA BIGGS: How
are they doing?

CHRISTIAN: They're -- a lot
of them are very apt to learn.

They're quick.

They're smart.

MARCIA BIGGS: Fawzi al-Nabdi
is the team leader for
the Iraqi local partner.

He's cleared mines all over
Iraq for the last six years.

CHRISTIAN: What you got?

FAWZI AL-NABDI, Team Leader
(through translator):
We are ready for this,
because it's my job

and I love it.

The Americans are
here to complete our
work and to help us.

They have greater
experience than we do.

If we find any mines,
we have to stop and
they will investigate
it and make a plan to

remove it.

MARCIA BIGGS: But he says Mosul
is the biggest project he has
ever seen, and we're told it

could take at least a
month to just get the
campus cleared of mines.

Only then can they start
cleaning it up, so that
students can resume
classes, this itself

a huge task.

ISIS fighters closed the
university back in 2014, and
used it as a military base.

As coalition forces pounded ISIS
targets, this seat of higher
learning became a battleground.

Ghassan Alubaidy is
the institute's dean.

GHASSAN ALUBAIDY, Dean,
Mosul Technical Institute
(through translator):
ISIS used our university

to manufacture mines and bombs.

For this reason, it was
the target of airstrikes
in the beginning.

They struck the institute
nine times, and they
struck our workshops, too.

Now we can't use them.

MARCIA BIGGS: The
former commander of
coalition forces in Iraq,
Lieutenant General Stephen

Townsend, recently
listed 81 locations where
bombs were dropped, but
had not yet exploded.

Facilities used to make weapons
were often on the list of
high-value targets for the

coalition.

So now those places
are twice as likely to
contain dangerous items.

So, this was once a workshop for
electrical engineering students.

You can still see
the lab tables here.

It was hit by an
airstrike in 2015.

Afterwards, members of
the university staff found
bomb-making instructions
among the rubble.

This was likely an ISIS
bomb-making factory, and
judging by the crater,
a high-value target.

Despite the damage, Dean
Alubaidy says he will
hold classes this fall
in alternate buildings,

until the campus is ready.

He's expecting registration
to be in the thousands,
students who lost three
years of education

during the fighting and don't
want to lose another one.

GHASSAN ALUBAIDY (through
translator): On our Facebook
pages, we found a great number

of students posting
that they were full of
encouragement to come back.

For us, it was unbelievable.

We couldn't imagine it,
to see how many students
wanted to start again,
how they were dreaming

of the first day of classes,
when they could sit in front
of teachers again and start to

live their lives again.

MARCIA BIGGS: Next door,
Mosul University has
already started classes.

Students even volunteered
to help in the cleanup.

But across the river, West
Mosul was the site of ISIS'
last stand and bore the brunt of

the battle.

It's densely packed Old City,
with its flattened buildings, is
a challenge for mine-sweeping.

FAWZI AL-NABDI (through
translator): Most of the
homes here were full of mines.

And just here in front of us,
a man with two kids came back
to his home, and when he opened

the door, the bomb
killed him and his kids.

MARCIA BIGGS: Ahmed Younes
fled back in early July with
only the clothes on his back.

Residents have been virtually
banned from returning to his
neighborhood on the outskirts

of the Old City, but Ahmed said
he got special permission, in
order to retrieve some personal

items.

AHMED YOUNES, Local Resident
(through translator):
We came on our own.

We got permission to come,
but they are not responsible
if anything happens to us.

MARCIA BIGGS: Right now, there
is no plan to begin clearing
the Old City or even to

determine how many
mines there are.

It is still out of
bounds to anyone but the
Iraqi security forces.

So the Janus team is focusing
on progress in the rest of the
city, building by building,

bomb by bomb.

CHRISTIAN: Whoever made
this device had a set goal.

And to allow him to
win, people get hurt.

So you kind of compete against
him to be better than him to
take it out before it can do any

harm.

MARCIA BIGGS: So, you
feel like you're winning
the battle against ISIS?

CHRISTIAN: Yes,
one IED at a time.

MARCIA BIGGS: For the
"PBS NewsHour," I'm Marcia
Biggs in Mosul, Iraq.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Tune in later.

"Frontline"'s latest film,
"Mosul," was on the ground
filming the fight as it unfolded

street by street
and house by house.

That's tonight on PBS.