IED materials discovered in Al Anbar 

Iraqi Security Forces and members of 2nd Marine Division discovered 32 weapons caches in the Al Anbar province over the last seven days.The latest find, discovered late yesterday, yielded more than 1,000 anti-tank mines and large quantities of rocket propellant from an underground storage container in the desert near Rawah, 315 km northwest of Baghdad.The bulk of these caches contained bomb-making material used in the construction of roadside bombs. Roadside bombs planted by insurgents are responsible for casualties to civilians, ISF and coalition corces. Today, Marines in Saqlawiyah discovered a civilian dump truck destroyed by a roadside bomb. The driver was taken to a nearby hospital.Artillery and mortar rounds, approximately 1,600 rounds uncovered in these caches, are typically used in improvised explosive devices. Several hundred pounds of dynamite and plastic explosives were discovered this week, along with fuses, timing devices, remote detonators and several hundred yards of detonation cord. These sites were discovered along the Euphrates River Valley, stretching from the Al Qa’im region near the Syrian border to the Ramadi-Fallujah corridor. Bomb-making cells are believed to contain specialists in the assembly of these devices who sometimes pay local Iraqi citizens several hundred U.S. dollars to plant the explosives. Discovery and destruction of caches is one link in countering the IED threat, while stopping the flow of funds and capturing or killing the bomb makers in these bomb-making cells are the other crucial steps. Ultimately, the removal of this material from the insurgent’s arsenal results in the degradation of their ability to carry out attacks against Iraqis and coalition forces.Editor's note: Photographs available upon request.