Eleven Terrorists Held; Bomb-Making Factory Seized in Iraq

American Forces Press Service

June 12, 2007 – Coalition forces detained 11 suspected terrorists during operations targeting al Qaeda in Iraq operations in the Baghdad area today. In operations yesterday, Multinational Division Baghdad soldiers seized a bomb-making factory, along with another large weapons cache while on patrol in the eastern portion of the Rashid district of the Iraqi capital.

Troops from Company A, 2nd Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, and Company A, 1st Battalion, 38th Infantry Regiment, discovered the factory, a complex of small buildings deep in the thick palm groves of East Rashid.

The find consisted of one vehicle wired and loaded with explosives, 54 82 mm mortars, 27 155 mm artillery shells, one 500-pound bomb, 64 anti-tank mines, two 200-pound bombs, three 100-pound bombs, 30 130 mm projectiles, 30 hand grenades, 200 artillery boosters, 10 40 mm rounds, 300 5-gallon cans of nitric acid used to make homemade explosives, and 1,500 anti-personnel mines. Troops also found enough wiring and bomb-making material to create more than 300 improvised explosive devices.

In a separate cache found near the complex, an additional 125 5-gallon containers of nitric acid were found. Three other vehicles were found wired as car bombs, but did not contain explosives.

Elsewhere in Iraq, Multinational Division Baghdad soldiers, in cooperation with Iraqi security forces, conducted a raid in the western Baghdad neighborhood of Hateen on June 10, uncovering a cache of bomb-making materials and capturing a terrorist suspect believed to be linked to al Qaeda in Iraq.

Soldiers from 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery Regiment, attached to 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, caught the alleged al Qaeda member and found about 500 boxes of toilet bowl cleaner and 20 boxes of circuit breaker covers, which can be used to build improvised chemical weapons.

In other Iraq operations, an insurgent detonated himself in a suicide car bomb near the Iraqi highway patrol headquarters east of Tikrit on June 10. Fourteen Iraqi police officers were killed in the attack.

In addition, Iraqi army and coalition force soldiers fired at and used attack helicopters to repel insurgents firing from inside the Al Hussiniyah mosque in Old Baquba on June 9.

(Compiled from Multinational Corps Iraq news releases.)

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