US special forces have discovered a massive haul of more than 200 tonnes of explosives in a cave complex in north-western Afghanistan, a military spokesman says. Acting on a tip-off, special forces last week discovered 204 tonnes of explosives in 17 caves near Maimana, capital of Faryab province, Colonel Roger King said at Bagram Air Base. He said the haul included 80 tonnes of high explosive and the rest was from small arms ammunition. Earlier this month, Romanian soldiers discovered thousands of rockets and more than 1 million rounds of ammunition in what the US military then described as the largest weapons cache discovered by US-led forces in Afghanistan. The find near Qalat, capital of southern Zabul province, included 3,000 107mm rockets, 250,000 rounds of 12.7mm machinegun ammunition, about 1 million rounds of small arms ammunition and other ammunition and mines. Afghan forces earlier this month also discovered about 18 caves full of ammunition and weapons near Maimana. Each cave was 15 metres by five metres by four metres high, Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali said when he announced the finds. Those weapons appeared to have been stockpiled during Afghanistan's 1992-1996 civil war, however, not a Taliban or Al Qaeda arsenal. US special forces also uncovered six smaller caches of weapons including 400 107mm rockets and machineguns in the Madr valley north-east of Bamiyan in central Afghanistan.
| Without wanting to sound like a job applicant to an NGO, imagine if all the money that went into arms and ammunition in these Islamic paradises went into groceries, or hospitals, or schools... |
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