Story highlights As Kurdish and Iraqi forces edge ever closer to Mosul, ISIS fighters fall back. But in their absence, they leave behind their ability to kill

Just how many IEDs are along the roads and in the villages around Mosul is impossible to tell

(CNN) Along a dusty village track just 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Mosul, a Peshmerga pick up truck leads us to a small house. We drive slowly, and in single file. There are hidden dangers all around.

In a covered area at the house, Captain Chilhan Sadk shows us dozens of ISIS Improvised Explosive Devices -- or IEDs -- that he and his men have dug up and defused in recent days.

It is a sobering show and tell -- and it isn't over yet. He brings us a suicide belt worn by an ISIS fighter who was killed before he could detonate it. Captain Sadk defused this deadly explosive too -- and an even bigger one he produces from the back of the pick up.

It's a silver box he says another ISIS fighter had carried in a backpack, primed and ready for detonation when he was shot dead. It would have been a massive blast had it gone off, packed with C4 explosives and hundreds of ball bearings.

This is no 'Hurt Locker'

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