U.S. Army Spc. Marquis Dawkins, an infantryman assigned to Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, surveys more than 120 five-gallon cans of nitric acid, a component used to make bombs, discovered at a bomb-making “factory” in Baghdad’s East Rashid District Monday. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Ben Washburn, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division Public Affairs.

Troops from Company A, 2nd Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment and Company A, 1st Battalion, 38th Infantry, attached to the 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, discovered a factory composed of a complex of small buildings in the palm groves of East Rashid after receiving intelligence of it’s location from other Coalition troops.

“This is tremendous work by our Soldiers to take more than 300 [improvised explosive devices] off the streets,” said U.S. Army Col. Ricky D. Gibbs, commander of 4th IBCT, 1st Division.

The find consisted of one vehicle-borne improvised explosive device; 54 82mm mortars; 27 155mm artillery shells; a 500-pound bomb; 64 anti-tank mines; two 200-pound bombs; three 100-pound bombs; 30 130mm projectiles; 200 artillery boosters; 300 five-gallon cans full of nitric acid; 15 bags of anti-personnel mines consisting of 100 mines per bag and enough explosives-making material to create more than 300 IEDs.

“This find further emphasizes our ability to get after the extremists and take away their tools of destruction, as none of these weapons and explosives will ever be used to harm others,” Gibbs said.

The weapons and explosives found at the extremist factory will be properly disposed.

“As Fardh Al-Qanoon continues to develop, there has been progress made by our forces here on the ground, though much work is still ahead,” said U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Kevin J. Bergner, the Multi-National Force-Iraq spokesman, in a press conference at the Combined Press Information Center June 6.

The 4th IBCT, 1st Div. has captured several suspected terrorists, opened a school, rescued a kidnapped Iraqi Soldier, destroyed several weapons and explosives caches and other feats with the help of Iraqi security forces and the local population of the Rashid District while deployed this year.

While Fardh Al-Qanoon is a continuing effort to secure Iraq, every cache found by Iraqi troops, Coalition forces and local citizens protects the population from future attacks.

(U.S. Army story from Multi-National Division-Baghdad Public Affairs Office)

In other developments throughout Iraq:

•           Multi-National Division-Baghdad Soldiers, in cooperation with Iraqi Security Forces, conducted a raid in the western Baghdad neighborhood of Hateen Sunday, uncovering a cache of bomb-making materials and capturing a terrorist suspect believed to be linked to al-Qaeda in Iraq.

•           Soldiers of the 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, seized a weapons cache near Al Dur’aya June 4.