This week brings in a motherlode of munitions of varying sizes. My personal conservative estimate is that at least 530 IEDs could have been built with these caches had they not been found. The equates to about 3710 lives saved that would have been affected, either by death or injury, by these illegal weapons. This number does NOT include the small arms and rocket fire that would have been associated with some of the attacks. The first story is about a success in capturing just one of the many people responsible for these horrid attacks.

February 17 – A success story of a person responsible for killing innocent people. Iraqi police arrested a man for firing rockets into a U.S. military base in Kirkuk. Colonel Al-Abden, Chief of the Al-Miqdad Police Station, announced that immediately after hearing the sound of a rocket being fired, officers on patrol in the city’s Grenada neighborhood started searching the area for suspects. Eyewitnesses told the officers that the rocket was launched from the back of a station wagon and a description of the vehicle was quickly distributed to police checkpoints throughout the city. Muhammad Ahmed Salem was apprehended at a police checkpoint while driving an Opel station wagon with two rocket launchers mounted in the rear cargo area. Muhammad has confessed to launching the rockets into the base and has also admitted to planting improvised explosive devices in and around Kirkuk.

February 20 – Soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 6th Iraqi Army Division discovered a cache in an abandoned building after receiving a tip on its location from a local resident. The contents of the cache produced 97 sticks of TNT, three preassembled bombs, six blasting caps and other miscellaneous items.

February 20 – Iraqi Police discovered a cache during a routine patrol of the city. An inventory of the cache produced one 130 mm round, one 120 mm round, one battery, one timer and a radio phone base station. An explosive ordnance team was called to the site and disposed of the cache.

February 22 – Soldiers from the 3rd Brigade, 7th Iraqi Army Division working with Coalition troops discovered a weapons cache during a patrol of Karabilah. The cache consisted of one 155 mm tank round, one 130 mm round, three 120 mm mortar rounds, one 60 mm round, 178 57 mm rounds, 40 23 mm rounds, 2,000 7.62 mm rounds, 1,215 fuses, 13 rocket-propelled grenades, 20 rocket-propelled grenade fin assemblies, three hand grenades, 20-pounds of rocket propellant and 15 blasting caps.

February 22 – Not necessarily a huge cache by any stretch of the imagination and has nothing to do with IEDs, but still a success story. Troops from the 3rd Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 1st Iraqi Army Division received an insurgent’s cache from local citizens during a combat patrol. The townsfolk retrieved the cache contents after observing a man burying them. The cache contained 150 rounds of AK-47 ammunition and one set of binoculars. Who knows what was buried along with this that wasn’t seen. Possibly part of a planned complex ambush.

February 22 – Iraqi soldiers from the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 7th Iraqi Army Division and Coalition troops discovered nine weapons caches while providing security for two previously found cache sites west of Rawah. The caches consisted of a total of 169 115 mm tank rounds and over 1,100 rounds of various sizes, ranging from 60 mm to 160 mm.

February 22 – Soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 1st Iraqi Army Division found a cache during a combat patrol north of Al Khalidiyah. The cache consisted of one 100 mm and two 90 mm high explosive anti-tank rounds. An explosives team responded to the site and destroyed the illicit ammunition in place.

February 22 – Soldiers from the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 7th Iraqi Army Division and Coalition troops detained eleven terrorists and confiscated a weapons cache during several actions. Troops detained six men for suspicious activities associated with a previously discovered cache west of Rawah. Soldiers then detained an insurgent during a search of a targeted house north of Husaybah. Troops later seized one terrorist who tested positive for explosive residue at a vehicle check point. Three men were apprehended after Soldiers found a weapons cache during a cordon and search in Rawah. The cache contents included loose 7.62 mm ammunition, two loaded AK-47 magazines and 10-inches of detonation cord.

To read past IED Roll-Ups, click HERE.