Office of the Secretary of Defense Public Affairs

Courtesy Story

By American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON - A Baqouba-based Iraqi special weapons and tactics unit advised by U.S. Special Forces Soldiers captured six terrorists in Iraq's Shilbah village yesterday.

The SWAT team targeted al-Qaida in Iraq fighters in the village who were using the area as a base for bomb and small-arms attacks against Iraqi security forces and as a prison and meeting place.

In other Iraq operations, Iraqi special operations forces killed 14 and captured a dozen suspected terrorists and Iranian-backed "special group" members in Basra in the past week, military officials reported. The suspects reportedly are responsible for attacks against Iraqi security forces. During the operations, Iraqi special operations troops cleared more than 30 buildings and destroyed nine homemade bombs.

Also in Iraq:

-- Coalition forces found a homemade bomb making facility in Diyala province yesterday. A U.S. Air Force F-16 destroyed the facility with a 500-pound bomb.

-- Iraqi soldiers found a weapons cache holding nearly 300 mortar rounds near Rushdi Mullah on, April 7. Forces recovered 60 mm, 120 mm and smaller mortar rounds, three rocket propelled grenade warheads, two cinderblock improvised explosive devices, and fuses.

-- U.S. Special Forces Soldiers destroyed an al-Qaida in Iraq training camp and large weapons cache in operations last week in the Jazeera Desert. A former radar station was used for the site. The cache included more than 20,000 rounds of ammunition, surface-to-air missiles, machine guns, rockets, dynamite, suicide-vest charges, hand grenades, mortar rounds and tubes, one rocket propelled grenade launcher and warheads, and homemade explosives materials. Forces called for air strikes to destroy the compound and the cache.

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