Iraqi national guardsmen have found a workshop used to manufacture explosives and chemical substances in the former rebel-held city of Fallujah, national security chief Kassem Daoud said on Thursday.
”In a house in the industrial district in southwest Fallujah, national guards discovered a chemical materials laboratory that was used to make explosives and toxic substances,” he told a Baghdad news conference.
”There were also pamphlets showing ways to make explosives, toxic substances, including anthrax,” he said.
Meanwhile five Arab foreign fighters who had escaped from Fallujah were arrested near the southern port city of Basra, where they were planning to attack coalition bases and police stations, authorities said on Thursday.
Also in Fallujah, the United States military said it had uncovered the largest arms cache yet inside the mosque of an insurgent leader.
Basra Police Chief Brigadier Mohammed Khazim said the men were stopped late on Wednesday at a checkpoint in Qurnah, about 60km north of Basra, and ”personal weapons” were found in their four-wheel-drive vehicle.
The men said they had come from Fallujah, the former rebel bastion where US Marine officers say they have found enough weapons to arm a nationwide rebellion.
Defence Minister Hazem Shaalan said earlier this week that about 60 Arab fighters were arrested during the assault on Fallujah.
The US and Iraqi leadership have repeatedly maintained that foreign fighters from neighboring Arabic countries are part of the insurgency.
The captured fighters were identified as Mohammed Faleh and Bassem Faleh, from Saudi Arabia, Mohammed Bin Hassan and Walid Mohammed, from Tunisia, and Mohammed al-Hadi, from Libya, he said.
The men left Fallujah four days ago, traveling to Baghdad for a couple days during which they worked with another group to carry out attacks in the capital. They did not specify what the attacks were.
They said they then headed to Basra with plans to attack police stations and coalition bases in the area. The bulk of Britain’s 8 500 troops in Iraq are based around Basra.
The men said they were supposed to be assisted by another group that had already infiltrated Basra, Khazim said. They were told that the weapons needed to carry out the attacks were already hidden inside the city, he said.
In Fallujah, US and Iraqi forces have uncovered the largest-yet weapons cache, stockpiled inside Saad Abi Bin Waqas Mosque where Sunni rebel leader and imam Abdullah al-Janabi often spoke, the U.S. military said in a statement.
Troops found small arms, artillery shells, heavy machine guns, and anti-tank mines iin the mosque. Troops also found what may be a mobile bomb-making factory housed in a truck, as well as mortar systems, rocket-propelled grenades, launchers, recoilless rifles and parts of surface-to-air weapons systems elsewhere in the mosque compound, the statement said.
The troops also found ”documents that detailed insurgent interrogations of recent kidnap victims,” the statement said, without elaborating.
Al-Janabi, in his 50s, headed the Mujahedeen Shura Council, which set up Islamic courts that meted out Islamic punishments, executed suspected spies and enforced a strict Islamic lifestyle in Fallujah.
Iraqi leaders have said that al-Janabi, along with other insurgent leaders such as Omar Hadid and Jordanian terror
mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, managed to escape from the city. – Sapa-AP