PRETEXT? - U.S. seizes weapons cache it says is linked to Iran

U.S. seizes weapons cache it says is linked to Iran

[link to seattletimes.nwsource.com]

By Kim Gamel

The Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq — U.S. officers said today they had discovered a factory for assembling sophisticated roadside bombs from Iranian-made components — the first such facility uncovered in a religiously mixed province north of Baghdad.

The officers, who displayed weapons for reporters at a U.S. base in the capital, said the find provides more evidence that the Iranians are providing weapons used to kill Americans. They include EFPs — explosively formed projectiles — that fire a slug of molten metal capable of penetrating armored vehicles and have been blamed for killing more than 170 U.S. and coalition soldiers since 2004.

Military officials also said the cache — buried in two freezers and a water container, with some of the rockets covered by tarps — was the largest of its kind to be found north of Baghdad.

"This is a significant amount," said Capt. Clayton Combs, the commander of the company that found the cache in the volatile Diyala province. "Before we have found one or two EFPs at the most and those are usually at the site of deployment. This is the first cache ... that has actually been found as far as a production facility."

Among the parts found during a raid Saturday after a tip from an Iraqi informant were 120 mm mortars and 122 mm rockets that the military said were made in Iran. Markings indicated they were made after the U.S.-led invasion nearly four years ago, which would rule out that they were leftovers from the 1980-88 Iraq-Iran war.

The cache also included artillery, anti-personnel mines, as well as more than 150 metal discs, detonation cords, electronic triggering mechanisms and C-4 plastic explosives — all laid out in piles for a press conference at the main U.S. military base on the western edge of Baghdad. The military said some smaller munitions had been destroyed at the site.

The display was the latest in a series presented by the U.S. military to bolster its allegation that Iranian weapons are being supplied to Shiite militias.

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