Huge Weapons Cache Yields Thousands of Buried Rounds

Published on November 30, 2005 By ShadowWar In War on Terror

Nov. 30, 2005 – Iraqi and U. S. forces have removed more than 4,200 mortar rounds from a major weapons cache found Nov. 27 outside of an abandoned military base near Kirkuk, Iraq, military officials reported.

Iraqi soldiers discovered the buried rounds that morning.

The soldiers removed about 800 mortar rounds before realizing the cache was much larger than originally thought. U. S. soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team were called in to help excavate the munitions and secure the area.

The ammunition was buried under concrete blocks with dirt mounded on top. All ammunition removed so far has come from one mound located in a field full of similar mounds. The explosives ordnance disposal team at the site expects to find more rounds as the search expands throughout the field.

"It was a good find," said Air Force Tech. Sgt. Jennifer Wayne, the explosives team chief at the site. "I'm glad we found it over someone else. All those rounds are potential (improvised explosive devices). We just stopped that many more IEDs. "

The rounds will be destroyed in a controlled detonation. Multiple caches found Nov. 28 on an island in the Euphrates River already have been destroyed, Task Force Baghdad officials said.

Military officials had been monitoring suspicious activity near the Euphrates River southwest of Baghdad for a couple of weeks, officials said. When conditions were right, soldiers from 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, were ready to spring into action.

"The timing was right to attack the target," said Army Col. Todd Ebel, 2nd Brigade Combat Team commander. "The pieces of the puzzle fit close enough. "

Soldiers from the team's 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, secured the objective and discovered three significant weapons caches. Soldiers also searched surrounding homes and facilities, detaining two suspected terrorists.

In total, the soldiers uncovered 11 500-pound bomb shells, C4 explosives, welding equipment, mortar rounds, miscellaneous bomb-making material, 57 mm rockets, 40 bags of fertilizer, 12 directional charges, five 155 mm rounds, 100 feet of detonation cord, three rocket-propelled grenades, eight bags of 20 mm rounds, and other munitions and explosives.

"The large bombs and welding material are critical," Ebel said. "It is likely this material was used for improvised explosive devices and possibly vehicle-borne IEDs that threaten Iraqi citizens and coalition forces. I could not be more proud of these 2/101st soldiers. They do this every day to help bring peace. No one could ask more of them. "

In other news, operations have begun to clear weapons and terrorists from the streets for the Dec. 15 national elections. Iraqi army soldiers and U. S. Marines, sailors and soldiers began operations near Hit in the Hai Al Becker region today.

About 500 Iraqi army soldiers from 2nd Brigade, 7th Iraqi Army Division, and 1,500 Marines and sailors from the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit, along with 500 soldiers from 2nd Battalion, 114th Field Artillery Regiment, are conducting Operation Iron Hammer east of Hit, about 170 miles from Baghdad.

The Hai Al Becker region is suspected to be an al Qaeda safe area and base of operations for the making of car bombs and roadside bombs, officials said. It also is believed to be a stopping point for terrorists as they transit the "rat lines" down the Euphrates River from Syria into the interior of Iraq.

In early July, Iraqi and U. S. forces established a long-term security presence in Hit during Operation Sword. During Sword, few terrorists were located; however, a score of weapons caches have been discovered in the region.

Iron Hammer will clear the area on the eastern side of the Euphrates River, an area not typically patrolled by Iraqi and U. S. forces.

On Nov. 29, Task Force Baghdad soldiers teamed up with Iraqi security forces to conduct Operation Thunder Blitz in southern Baghdad, resulting in the capture of 33 terror suspects.

Moving rapidly into the area, hundreds of U. S. soldiers from 3rd Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, and Iraqi forces from the 1st Battalion, 2nd Commando Brigade, Wolf Battalion, took the enemy by surprise, securing seven different objective areas along the Tigris River. (Compiled from Multinational Force Iraq and Task Force Baghdad news releases. )

Comments

ParaTed2k

on Nov 30, 2005

But John Kay and Scott Ritter know all about weapons in Iraq, if these weapons existed, they would have told us about them long ago. ;~D

Dr Guy

on Nov 30, 2005

That is indeed good news! I know it wont stop the IEDs tomorrow, but that has to put a big crimp into the terrorist plans.

ParaTed2k

on Nov 30, 2005

Colon Gangrene's pissed the stash he bankrolled was confiscated.

citahellion

on Nov 30, 2005

Sweet.

In other news, every time I see "IED", I think "IUD" for a second or two instead.

ShadowWar

on Nov 30, 2005

I have requested the photos of this find, should have them posted as soon as I get them.

ShadowWar

on Dec 01, 2005

I have added the photos as you can see in the original post.

DJBandit

on Dec 01, 2005

Nice. Where's Col gene when you need him. I bet he's gonna say Bush put those there to make it look like they had them. I bet he will find one hell of a twist for this one.

ParaTed2k

on Dec 01, 2005

Nice. Where's Col gene when you need him.

Cowaring in his diaper.

terpfan1980

on Dec 01, 2005

Nice. Where's Col gene when you need him.

Cowaring in his diaper.

Nah, he's off trying to follow Cindy Sheehan's book tour around the country to try to pick off a few stragglers for sales of his own.

I think both are somewhere near the bottom of the Amazon lists for sales

ShadowWar

on Dec 04, 2005

OK I am going to try to make my point AGAIN, if they can hide a weapons cache of the size of the one in the original post. And they can hide complete squads of planes (see pics below) then how can anyone with any kind of reason say we have searched everywhere and found everything we are going to find? I mean be realistic. From talking to guys that have been there you could hide an entire football field size cache within stones throw of some of our bases and we would not know it until its accidentally found or someone (Iraqi) leads us to it.

The al Taqqadum air field west of Baghdad in Iraq, a sandy wasteland surrounded by high dunes off the main Baghdad-to-Jordan highway, was the focus of intense search-and-destroy activity after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003; its vast desert spaces were thought to be a likely location for missile launchers or aircraft from which chemical or biological strikes against U.S. troops might be launched.

What military search teams eventually found at al Taqqadum, in July 2003, were remnants of the Iraqi Air Force as pictured above: a reported 30 to 40 planes, including several MiG-25 and Su-25 ground attack jets, buried more than 10 feet beneath tons of soil and covered with camouflage netting. According to the Pentagon, at least one of the MiG-25s was found because searchers spotted its twin tail fins protruding from the sand. Some of the planes had been wrapped in plastic sheeting to protect their electronics and machinery from the sand (and some had had their wings removed), but others were interred with little or no protection from the sand or the elements. The recovery teams had to use large earth-moving equipment to uncover the aircraft.

The discovery at al Taqqadum was not announced to the public until a month later, in a press briefing delivered by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld:

WASHINGTON, Aug. 6, 2003 — American forces have found Russian fighter jets buried in the Iraqi desert, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in an Aug. 5 press briefing.

"We'd heard a great many things had been buried, but we had not known where they were, and we'd been operating in that immediate vicinity for weeks and weeks and weeks . . . 12, 13 weeks, and didn't know they were (there)," Rumsfeld said.

The secretary said he wasn't sure how many such aircraft had been found, but noted, "It wasn't one or two."

He said it's a "classic example" of the challenges the Iraqi Survey Group is facing in finding weapons of mass destruction in the country.

"Something as big as an airplane that's within . . . a stone's throw of where you're functioning, and you don't know it's there because you don't run around digging into everything on a discovery process," Rumsfeld explained. "So until you find somebody who tells you where to look, or until nature clears some sand away and exposes something over time, we're simply not going to know. "But, as we all know," he added, "the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."

Now be logical if you can hide these and have them not be found for some time, what about 4500 motor rounds? Oh ya thats right over 2 years to find. Maybe there is still more still out there??

ShadowWar

on Dec 06, 2005

Dec. 5, 2005 – Iraqi soldiers and U. S. troops found and destroyed a treasure-trove of weapons caches during a three-day period Dec. 2-4. The enemy stockpiles included everything from rocket-propelled-grenade launchers to AK-47 assault rifles to artillery shells and hundreds of pounds of explosives and munitions, officials said.
Iraqi and U. S. troops discovered five weapons caches throughout north central Iraq Dec. 4. The largest cache included 27 artillery rounds, several hand grenades, a rocket-propelled-grenade launcher with six rounds, and an AK-47, officials noted. A joint patrol of soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 1st Brigade, 5th Iraqi Army Division, and U. S. Task Force 1-32 Cavalry, from the 101st Airborne Division, made the discovery in the village of Tamim, northwest of Kirkuk.

U. S. soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team discovered a 155 mm artillery shell, a large mortar round and 3,000 rounds of anti-aircraft ammunition during a raid near Balad early on the morning of Dec. 4. Five suspected terrorists were detained at the site.

Another patrol, from Task Force 100-442 Infantry, found a small cache of two rocket-propelled-grenade launchers and two warheads near Balad Dec. 4. U. S. soldiers from the 101St Airborne Division seized two rockets while searching for gunmen who attacked them with small-arms fire near Kirkuk Dec. 4.

In other news, a tip from a local citizen resulted in the capture of two terror suspects and the discovery of a large weapons cache stored in a salt factory in western Rashid Dec. 3, officials said. When soldiers from the 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment, searched the factory, they found: 23 60 mm mortar rounds, 20 82 mm mortar rounds, two 120 mm artillery rounds, 40 fuses, two rocket-propelled grenades, one grenade, and 200 rounds of small-arms ammunition.
Soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 4th Iraqi Army Division, discovered another large cache, containing 25 large mortar rounds and 50 detonating fuses, Dec. 3 in Tamim.

The list of terrorists weapons stockpiles found by U. S. troops and Iraqi soldiers keeps growing in the Baghdad area as well.

On Dec. 2, soldiers from 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, discovered two significant weapons caches in southern Baghdad, officials said. While conducting a routine cordon and search of houses, soldiers of A Troop, 1st Squadron, 75th Cavalry Regiment, found a small weapons cache, which led the troops to a larger find at the site, officials noted. The weapons stockpile included two 82 mm rockets, one 60 mm mortar tube, two 60 mm mortar rounds, and one small-arms tripod.

While an explosive ordnance disposal team was en route to the area, the soldiers continued searching the site and surrounding roads and field. They found one more site with multiple explosives, munitions and other suspicious materials.

When the cache site was excavated, the troops found a huge stockpile of weapons, including two complete mortar systems, one rocket-propelled-grenade launcher, 10 Iraqi army-issue flak jackets, 10 Iraqi army-issue uniforms, 20 pounds of homemade explosives, 33 rocket-propelled grenades, 36 86 mm mortars, 42 52 mm mortars, 21 120 mm mortars, 47 rocket-fired grenades, 34 "pick-up" mortars, 11 various rockets, and 3,000 anti-aircraft munitions. They also found thousands of rounds of ammunition and materials used to manufacture improvised explosive devices.

drmiler

on Dec 06, 2005

But of course the left will NEVER admit to this! Notice the absense of the Clueless Old Liberal.

Thateodchick

on Aug 03, 2006

Don't know if you're still following this thread...but I have hundreds of pictures of this find...to include video of the disposal...Sincerely, TSgt Jennifer Wayne

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