Coalition forces have destroyed a cache used for manufacturing and assembling explosive devices in the Ghazaliyah neighborhood in western Baghdad, officials said Saturday.
Soldiers from Company D, 2nd Battalion, 12th Cavalry Division, attached to the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, found about 200 pounds of explosives on Friday, dispersed between two houses near the Al-Shadra Mosque.
One house was identified as a homemade explosives facility while the second was a bomb-making assembly site, according to a press release from the Multi-National Corps-Iraq.
Apart from 200 pounds of homemade explosives, soldiers found washing-machine timers, cell phone cards, passports, hundreds of blasting caps, time fuses, detonation cords and numerous physics and engineering books.
A explosives ordnance disposal team leader and a commander spoke with a local sheik and community leaders about the cache, the release said.
With the leaders’ agreement, the cache was destroyed by controlled detonation, officials said.