Special Forces destroy al-Qaida camp cache
Staff report
Posted : Saturday Apr 12, 2008 7:25:56 EDT
U.S. Special Forces soldiers destroyed a terrorist training camp found in Iraq’s Jazeera Desert near the Syrian border and then engaged approaching enemy fighters at an adjoining weapons cache, according to an Army press release.
The large cache and camp, operated by al-Qaida in Iraq, were found on a three-day patrol that began April 2, according to a press release from the U.S. Army Special Operations Command.
The patrol was planned based on intelligence reports. The abandoned compound was located and cleared, according to the release. After the cache was secured, the soldiers saw two white trucks approaching the compound, each with a mounted machine gun in its bed. The vehicles stopped short of the compound and one vehicle began a flanking maneuver.
“Based on prior intelligence, the discovered cache, and the manner of movement by the vehicles,” the Special Forces soldiers “determined hostile intent and fired upon the flanking vehicle,” the release stated. “The truck caught fire and the individuals inside the truck ran to the second truck and fled the area.”
The soldiers then called for coalition airstrikes to destroy the training compound. Five of 18 structures were destroyed and the weapons cache items were either destroyed or transported away from the site.
At the site, the release said, the Special Forces soldiers found more than 20,000 rounds of 14.5 mm ammunition, two SA-7 surface-to-air missiles, one SA-7 battery, two complete 14.5mm machine guns, seven 68mm rockets, 15 sticks of TNT, two suicide vest charges, two hand grenades, two 82mm mortar tubes, 35 82mm mortar rounds, one 120mm mortar tube, one rocket-propelled grenade launcher, four RPG warheads, 18 bags of ammonium nitrate and one bag of Syrian 12-gauge shotgun shells.
