'Chemical bomb' factory found

2004-11-25 18:09

Latifiyah - Iraq said on Thursday it had found a chemical bomb factory in Fallujah as US-led forces rounded up scores of suspected insurgents in a major sweep through the country's "triangle of death."

But rebels continued to wage deadly attacks, with the US announcing the murder of a state department official in Baghdad in a killing claimed by a group headed by Iraq's most wanted man, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Two people were also killed in car bomb attacks in Samarra and a vital oil pipeline linking oil fields to a major refinery was attacked despite the deployment of 2 0O0 national guardsmen to protect it.

US secretary of state Colin Powell announced that James Mollen, who worked with Iraqi education ministries, was murdered in Baghdad, but gave no further details about when it took place.

'Triangle of death'

In a bid to wipe out insurgents ahead of January's crucial elections, about 5 000 troops descended on a number of targets in the "triangle of death" southwest of Baghdad in a series of early morning swoops.

Those detained in Thursday's raids brought to 116 the number of suspected insurgents captured since Operation Plymouth Rock kicked off on Tuesday, the army said.

Chemical bomb factoryIraq's national security chief Kassen Daoud said a chemical bomb factory was found in Fallujah, while US forces said they discovered a huge cache of weapons in a mosque inside the devastated city.

National guardsmen found a "chemical materials laboratory that was used to make explosives and toxic substances," Daoud told reporters in Baghdad, adding that there were also pamphlets showing how to make explosives and toxic substances, including anthrax.

The US military said the largest weapons cache in Fallujah was found in a mosque which it described as a suspected safe house where rebel cleric Abdullah al-Janabi preached "anti-coalition rhetoric."

It said a truck found in the mosque compound was laden with explosive compounds, rocket-propelled grenades, grenades, mortar rounds, rockets and bomb-making materials.

Foreign fighters

"Initial assessments indicate the truck may have been a mobile IED factory," it said, using the term for home-made bombs it calls improvised explosive devices.

US officials fear that despite efforts to encircle Fallujah, some of the foreign fighters who had been ruling the city in recent months managed to flee before the onslaught and could be regrouping in other cities.

And in the far south of Iraq, police in Basra said they had arrested five foreign fighters who had escaped the fighting in Fallujah.

"Two Saudis, two Tunisians and one Libyan who were involved in terrorist activities in Fallujah and in central Iraq were arrested in Qurna," Basra police chief Mohammed Kadhem al-Ali told reporters.

Another 40 people from Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Libya and Syria were arrested along with African and Afghan nationals, in addition to a number of Iraqis, he added.

- AFP