Text 27515, 124 rader
Skriven 2007-02-26 20:38:00 av Jeff Binkley (1:226/600)
Ärende: Iraq
============
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2007/02/26/D8NHMIB81.html

U.S. Finds Major Weapons Cache in Iraq

Feb 26 6:10 PM US/Eastern

   
By KIM GAMEL
Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- U.S. officers said Monday they had discovered a 
factory for assembling sophisticated roadside bombs from Iranian-made 
components _ the first such facility uncovered in a religiously mixed 
province north of Baghdad. 
The officers, who displayed weapons for reporters at a U.S. base in the 
capital, said the find provides more evidence that the Iranians are 
providing weapons used to kill Americans. They include EFPs _ 
explosively formed projectiles _ that fire a slug of molten metal 
capable of penetrating armored vehicles and have been blamed for killing 
more than 170 U.S. and coalition soldiers since 2004. 

The display was the latest in a series presented by the U.S. military to 
bolster its allegation that Iranian weapons are being supplied to Shiite 
militias. Iran has denied the charge, and some private defense analysts 
say Iranian weaponry is widely available on international arms markets. 
U.S. ordnance experts maintain that the workmanship on component parts 
is uniquely Iranian and too high in quality to have been copied by Iraqi 
extremists without access to advanced machinery. 

Military officials said the cache _ buried in two freezers and a water 
container, with some of the rockets covered by tarps _ was the largest 
of its kind to be found north of Baghdad. 

"This is a significant amount," said Capt. Clayton Combs, the commander 
of the company that found the cache in the volatile Diyala province. 
"Before we have found one or two EFPs at the most and those are usually 
at the site of deployment. This is the first cache ... that has actually 
been found as far as a production facility." 

Among the parts found during a raid Saturday after a tip from an Iraqi 
informant were 120 mm mortars and 122 mm rockets that the military said 
were made in Iran. Markings indicated they were made after the U.S.-led 
invasion nearly four years ago, which would rule out that they were 
leftovers from the 1980-88 Iraq-Iran war. 

The cache also included artillery, anti-personnel mines, as well as more 
than 150 metal discs, detonation cords, electronic triggering mechanisms 
and C-4 plastic explosives _ all laid out in piles for a press 
conference at the main U.S. military base on the western edge of 
Baghdad. The military said some smaller munitions had been destroyed at 
the site. 

The U.S. military has said elite Iranian corps are funneling EFPs to 
Shiite militias in Iraq for use against American troops, and earlier 
this month reporters in Baghdad were shown pieces of EFPs officials said 
were directly traceable to Iran. 

Officials declined to link the find in Diyala to the Iranian government 
but said it was further proof that weapons were coming from the 
neighboring country, which is locked in a standoff with Washington over 
allegations it is fueling the violence in Iraq and seeking to develop 
nuclear weapons. 

"It's proof beyond a doubt that there's Iranian manufactured weapons 
being used by insurgents in Iraq," military spokesman Lt. Col. Josslyn 
Aberle said in Baghdad. "But we can't say based on what we had and what 
we found who's involved in it." 

Aberle said caches with components for making the weapons had been found 
elsewhere in Iraq but this was the first time one had been found in the 
Diyala area. The discovery comes amid concerns that militants have been 
streaming northward to escape the security crackdown in Baghdad. 

Ordnance officer Maj. Marty Weber said the country of origin of the 
mortars and rockets could be determined by the markings and the 
structure of the weapons, which can be fitted together with copper 
basins to create the deadly roadside bombs. 

The cache was found west of the provincial capital of Baqouba. The area 
is dominated by Sunni insurgents, but also includes pockets of Shiites. 

Maj. Jeremy Siegrist, the battalion's executive officer, said he had no 
evidence Sunni groups in the area were using EFPs and he indicated it 
was more likely that Shiite groups were using the weapons, which were 
found in the village of Jadida that is known to house some members of 
the Mahdi Army militia, which is loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada 
al-Sadr. 

"We have found EFPs in areas that are Sunni but that doesn't mean that 
Sunnis were using them. It could have been Shia that brought them 
there," he said. "I don't have any hard evidence to say that any Sunni-
based insurgency group is using EFPs in Diyala province." 

When asked if that meant it was more likely that Shiite groups were 
using the weapons, he said, "I believe so based on the areas where we 
find the EFPs." 

He also said the discovery of an assembly factory cast doubt on previous 
assumptions that the deadly weapons were made elsewhere and imported to 
the area, some 35 miles northeast of Baghdad. 

"From this conceivably you could make 50 or more EFPs," he said. "All of 
our assumptions, at least in Diyala, have been that EFPs are made 
externally and brought into Diyala and this obviously refutes that 
hypothesis in that there's more and they're being made locally," he 
said. 

Lt. Col. Michael Donnelly, spokesman for Multinational Division-North, 
said it was "the most potentially lethal IED cache seized in northern 
Iraq in the past eight months." 

Last week, U.S. troops found a suspected Shiite weapons hideout in the 
southern city of Hillah that also included parts to make the lethal 
roadside bombs. 

The New York Times reported that the stash included a bomb-rigged fake 
boulder made of polyurethane that was apparently ready to be placed for 
an attack. Hezbollah guerrillas have used such a device in southern 
Lebanon. Iran is believed to be a major supporter of Hezbollah.



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