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US finds haul of armour-piercing bombs in Iraq

WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.

Original Post Date: 2007-02-28 Time: 00:00:00  Posted By: Jan

[This is interesting. Take note of how the Iraqis are manufacturing weapons. We could do the same in a war. Jan]

United States troops in Iraq have found a huge haul of deadly armour-piercing bombs of a type Tehran has allegedly smuggled to Shi’ite militias, US officers said Monday.

Displaying the trove of bomb parts and mortar shells, the commanders said it was impossible to tie the shipment directly to the Tehran government, but said many of the weapons were clearly Iranian-made.

Soldiers found a workshop with enough components to build 150 “explosively formed penetrators [EFP]” on Saturday in Jadidah, a Shi’ite village 25km north of Baghdad, US army Major Jeremy Siegrist said.

Earlier this month, a US military spokesperson said EFPs were made in Iran and exported to Iraqi Shi’ite groups as bomb components to be assembled and used in attacks on US and Iraqi forces.

This allegation sparked controversy and was denied in Tehran, and on Monday Siegrist was more cautious, saying: “I don’t think there’s any way this can be tied to a government.”

He confirmed, however, that 19 large mortar shells, 13 122mm rockets and three bags of C4 plastic explosives found in the same weapons store had markings indicating that they were of Iranian manufacture.

In addition, the troops found seven rocket-propelled grenade launchers, Siegrist said at Camp Victory outside Baghdad, where soldiers displayed the haul to photographers.

“This is a significant amount. It saved a lot of soldiers’ lives,” said Captain Clayton Combs, whose unit found the weapons.

“There are a lot of American soldiers sleeping better tonight because of this EFP cache find,” said Combs, adding, “This is the first time we have found a manufacturing location.”

The discovery of the workshop was the result of a tip by a local resident, he said.

Among the haul were bags of bicycle ball bearings, often used by suicide bombers to create maximum impact, bearing labels in English reading: “Feel the performance, feel the power, feel the steel balls.”

On February 13, US military spokesperson Major General William Caldwell said that EFPs had so far only been successfully manufactured in Iran and that since May 2004 at least 170 American soldiers have been killed by them.

The EFP is designed to fire a white-hot slug of molten copper when a vehicle passes, slicing through the armour of even the US’s modern tanks, and causing carnage inside.

US officials have cited its increasing use on the Iraqi battlefield as evidence of Tehran’s interference in Iraq, where its agents are accused of training and supplying illegal Shi’ite militia groups.

Iran denies the charge, and opponents of President George Bush have accused the White House of seeking excuses to launch air strikes against Iraq’s neighbour, amid controversy over its nuclear programme.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s government is walking a diplomatic tightrope in its relations with Iran and the US.

Many of the Shi’ite parties in Maliki’s ruling coalition maintain links with Tehran, and both Maliki and President Jalal Talabani have visited Iran with an eye to seeking their neighbour’s cooperation in ending the Iraqi crisis.

But, at the same time, Sunni parties in the government fiercely oppose “Persian” influence in Iraqi affairs and accuse Iranian agents of sponsoring militias engaged in the country’s bitter sectarian conflict.

Earlier this month, Iran’s role in Iraq came under the spotlight once more, when US commanders and senior Iraqi officials claimed that radical Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr had decamped across the border.

Sadr’s supporters deny this, but he has not been seen publicly for many weeks.

On Sunday, Shi’ite cleric Abdulzahra al-Suweidi read a purported statement from his leader to a cheering supporters in Sadr City, a bastion of Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia in east Baghdad.

In the statement, Sadr urged Iraqi security forces to stop cooperating with a US-led security plan for Baghdad. — AFP

URL: http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=/br…/p>