Volunteers' tip leads to major weapons bust in Baghdad
BAGHDAD — Iraq's new auxiliary police has scored a major
counter-insurgency success.
Officials said members of the new auxiliary police learned of a major Al
Qaida weapons cache in the western Baghdad district of Ameriya. The
information was relayed by the Sunni force to the U.S. military and the
cache was seized on Dec. 3.
"Acting on a tip from area volunteers, coalition forces uncovered the
second largest weapons cache ever discovered by [U.S. Army] Task Force 1-5
Cavalry in the western Baghdad neighborhood of Ameriya late on Dec. 3," the
U.S. military said on Sunday.
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The auxiliary force was identified as the Sunni-dominated Knights of the
Two Rivers, or Forsan Al Rafidain. The military said the cache consisted of
anti-tank mines, grenades and a large quantity of improvised explosive
device-making material, Middle East Newsline reported.
"The cache included 95 landmines as well as an assortment of different
rocket-propelled grenades and hand grenades," the military said. "The last
time a cache of this size was found in Ameriyah was in late summer, during
the most intense fighting between Al Qaida and coalition forces."
Officials said the cache marked a major achievement for the auxiliary
police, sometimes known as Concerned Local Citizens. The force, most of them
paid by the U.S. military, contains 72,000 people and was established in
2007.
Iraqi insurgents have increased their use of IEDs in December,
particularly in the Diyala province. Officials said the Iraq Army plans an
offensive against Al Qaida and aligned insurgents in Diyala.
On Dec. 8, Iraqi and U.S. forces captured Al Qaida operatives, including
Rami Al Suri, a Syrian national said to be connected to insurgency
recruitment in the Nineveh province. Another IED struck a convoy and killed
the police chief of the Babil province and two of his bodyguards. The
province has a predominately Shi'ite population, and officials said Al Qaida
was believed to be responsible for the attack.
