THE TENSION: OIF Summary; Dec. 28, 2008: Citizens Turn Over Weapons Cache to Iraqi Soldiers

Dispatches from the Front:

WASHINGTON, Dec. 28, 2008 -- Residents of Farhitiyah, Iraq, turned over the contents of a weapons cache to a detachment of Iraqi soldiers yesterday, U.S. military officials said.

The cache contained rockets, one artillery round, mortar rounds, an improvised rocket launcher, rocket-propelled grenades, grenade rounds, grenade boosters, nitric acid and a quantity of small-arms ammunition.

In another operation yesterday, Iraqi police and U.S. soldiers discovered blasting caps and ammunition inside a house located north of Samarra. The police also discovered parts suitable for making roadside bombs.

In Dec. 26 operations:

A local Iraqi led Iraqi volunteer militia and U.S. soldiers to a weapons cache located northwest of Samarra. The cache contained artillery rounds, rockets, mortar rounds, anti-aircraft rounds, warheads and a bag of homemade explosives.

Sons of Iraq security volunteers detained a suspected criminal in Baghdad’s Rashid district.

Iraqi police and U.S. soldiers arrested a suspect linked to a recent explosion in the Masafee community of Baghdad’s Rashid district.

Iraqi soldiers discovered a rocket cache and several launching systems during operations in Ninewa province. The cache contained rockets, more than 50 rocket-launch stations, an electronic initiation system, fuses, and a cell phone.

Iraqi soldiers, police and U.S. soldiers confiscated several weapons caches in the Baghdad area. One cache contained some 100 and 115 mm projectiles and an empty 152 mm projectile. Another cache yielded silencers, grenade fuses, propellant, high-explosive mortars, and a machine-gun body and bolt. Another cache contained two mortars. An Iraq citizen turned in two artillery rounds.

Iraqi soldiers seized a weapons cache during an operation in the Ghazaliyah district of northwest Baghdad. The cache contained mortar rounds, propellant and two silencers.

In Dec. 25 operations:

Iraqi soldiers found a large cache of explosives in southern Baghdad. The cache contained more than 1,000 pounds of home-made explosives.

Iraqi police from Fallujah stopped a mobile roadside bomb from reaching its target at a traffic checkpoint near Nasir Wa Salam. The police challenged the occupants of the vehicle and a gun battle ensued. The would-be bombers were killed or subdued or ran away.

In Dec. 24 operations, Iraqi police and coalition forces found a cache of weapons and other assorted military equipment during an operation in Diyala province. The cache contained magazines, ballistic vests, body armor plates, bayonets, helmets, grenade fuses, masks, an automatic weapon, Iraqi army and police uniforms and more than 100 rounds of small-arm ammunition.

(Compiled from Multinational Force Iraq and Multinational Corps Iraq news releases.)