Cars stolen by al-Qaeda in Iraq litter the yard of a house in Bayija. The cars were taken by the Iraqi Criminal Investigation Department, April 14, to be used as evidence against members of AQI. Photo by 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division Public Affairs.

It is believed that AQI stored the vehicles so they could be used to build vehicle borne improvised explosive devices or be sold to finance AQI operations.

Using four flatbed trucks and a crane, 26 cars were loaded and taken to CID headquarters in Dora for investigation. The cars were at a house in the village of Bayija, used by AQI since early 2007 as a meeting and storage area.

Company A, 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, Iraqi Police and Sons of Iraq (SoI) assisted Iraqi CID in Arab Jabour.

Members of the SoI helped the CID agents load the cars onto the flatbed while others provided security.

“Iraqi CID brought all the tools needed and were remarkably efficient,” said Capt. Neil Hollenbeck, Company A commander, from Louisville, Ky. “We expected the mission to take two days and it was completed in three hours.”

Maj. Eric Weis, 1-30th Inf. Regt. operations officer, said the mission was a tremendous success.

“We’re confident that this combined operation with the Sons of Iraq, Iraqi CID and Coalition forces set the foundation for future cooperation, intelligence and information sharing and showed the emerging government of Iraq involvement in greater Arab Jabour,” said Weis, a native of Silverthorne, Colo.

Iraqi CID is a department of the Ministry of Interior. They are a new department tasked with investigating cases associated with interrogation, terrorism, kidnapping and forensic evidence collection.