BAGHDAD - The US military on Tuesday said its troops have seized a bomb-making factory in eastern Baghdad capable of manufacturing more than 300 roadside bombs. The factory, a cluster of small buildings, was discovered in the thick palm groves of Baghdad’s eastern Rashid neighbourhood on Monday, the military said.The soldiers have taken more than “300 improvised explosive devices off the streets,” a statement quoted US commander Colonel Ricky D. Gibbs as saying.
The find consisted of one vehicle wired and packed with explosives, dozens of mortars, one 500 pound (230 kilogram) bomb, hundreds of grenades and projectiles, and hundreds of cans of nitric acid used to make crude bombs. In a separate cache near the complex, more cans of nitric acid were found, the statement said, along with another three vehicles wired as car bombs but without explosives.