FOB MAREZ - The IA and U.S. Soldiers from the 1st Bn, 36th Inf Regt, 1st AR Div, collected a large weapons and explosives cache in Ninawa prov., Feb. 7. The combined forces acted on a tip that led them to a house located in the Al Zuhuer neighborhood of Mosul. When they discovered the extent of the cache, however, they called in an EOD co.
Members of the 38th EOD, attached to the 2nd HBCT, 3rd ID, out of Fort Stewart, Ga., responded, and discovered even more weapons and bomb-making materials throughout the house and behind false walls, including 26 AK-47 assault rifles, 4 Russian RPK/RPD 7.62mm squad automatic weapons, 4 long rifles of unknown origin, 1 bolt-action rifle of unknown origin,1 sterling 9mm machine gun, 1 .22 cal. hand gun, 700 60mm mortar rounds, 125 82mm rounds, 100 mortar primers, 35 RPG motors, 3 rocket launchers, 7 RPG launchers, 40 grenades of unknown model, and 50 Russian RGE-5 grenades.
The troops also confiscated several thousand Iraqi dinar and an Iraqi gas mask, as well as American military products including a pair of night vision goggles, numerous optical weapon sights, 5 military-issue bulletproof ballistic armor plates and 4 body armor vests. The cache further contained infrared sensors, wiring and IED electronic components, 9 Iraqi license plates, more than 10,000 rounds of 7.62mm machine gun ammo, several thousand feet of detonation cord, several thousand feet of explosive time fuse, 7 boxes of projectile fuses, 30 lbs of rocket propellant and 10 boxes of 14.5mm ammo.
"I was amazed at how much work they'd actually taken to plaster the walls up to make them look like the rest of the room. That's a lot of work to hide something," said 1st Sgt. Jerimiah Raemhild from 38th EOD. "It definitely was a long-term storage site for the weapons."
It took about 6 hours for the IA and Soldiers to move the ordnance and weapons to waiting trucks, said Sgt. 1st Class Michael Barker, 38th EOD. "We pulled out hundreds of pieces of ordnance, mortar tubes, AK-47s, projectiles, and IED materials," he said.
The IA collected the equipment they could use. The rest, including all the electronic components and cell phones, was tagged, recorded and sent away for analysis. Specialists will look them over to answer questions, like where the weapons came from, or what current techniques bomb-makers are using.
