In a Sept. 8 briefing, Nash said large amounts of Iranian and other
weapons were found in the provinces of Dhi Qar and Maysan. He said the Iraq
Army's 10th Division captured dozens of
explosively-formed penetrator plates, magnetic car sticky bombs,
rocket-propelled grenades, hundreds of machine guns, assault rifles, and
thousands of small-arms rounds.
The weapons caches, found in northern Maysan, also included more than
100 rockets, artillery rounds and mortar shells. Officials said the area in
Maysan, dubbed the Southern Triangle, was raided by Iraqi troops in August
2009 in an effort to prevent the flow of weapons to Iranian-supported
Shi'ite militias.
"This effort is still ongoing," Nash said. "They're deliberately going
through the arid area, as I mentioned, the swamp area; very difficult
operations obviously during the hottest part of the year here in Iraq, late
August, early September."
Officials said Iran has continued the flow of weapons to Shi'ite
militias in Iraq. They said some of the weapons were produced as late as
2007.
"Some of them are rather new," Nash said. "So needless to say, the bulk
of what we see would have a stamp on a particular munition that would say
'Iran.'"
Nash said Iraq and the United States have developed an effective
intelligence network to track weapons shipments from Iran. He said the Iraqi
military has received tips of weapons caches from local tribes.
