Iraqi Forces Seize Terrorists, Cash, Weapons

[darrels joy]

Iraqi Forces Seize Terrorists, Cash, Weapons
American Forces Press Service


WASHINGTON, June 10, 2005 ? Iraqi Army and Task Force Baghdad soldiers captured 33 terror suspects, seized 2 million Iraqi dinars and confiscated a variety of bomb-making materials in a series of operations conducted June 8 and 9, military officials in Baghdad reported.
The Iraqi Ministry of Interior's Wolf Brigade rounded up the largest capture: 23 suspects in an early-morning raid June 9.

Also on June 9, three separate operations in central and south Baghdad yielded five more terror suspects, including one foreign fighter and two suspected members of a known terrorist cell.

A day earlier in central Baghdad, Iraqi police captured another foreign fighter in a major arrest that also netted 2 million Iraqi dinars and $6,750 in U.S. currency, officials said. Also discovered were large quantities of fertilizer, chemicals used in making explosives and a picture of Saddam Hussein. The suspect was taken into custody for questioning.

Later that same day, an Iraqi shopkeeper tipped off U.S. soldiers to a suspicious vehicle abandoned on the side of a highway. The car was weighted in the rear, with gas cans visible in the back seat. An explosives team safely detonated the vehicle.

"The operations and arrests made by the Iraqi security forces over the past couple of days continue to demonstrate that the Iraqis can and are taking the fight to the terrorists," Task Force Baghdad spokesman Lt. Col. Clifford Kent said.

In another June 9 operation, task force soldiers on patrol spotted wires coming out of a mound of dirt along a highway in south Baghdad. As an EOD team approached that bomb, a second bomb exploded in the area. One soldier suffered minor injuries. Three more bombs were found and safely detonated.

(Compiled from a Task Force Baghdad media release.)