FALLUJAH, Iraq – U.S. Marine officers said Wednesday that U.S. and Iraqi troops sweeping Fallujah have uncovered enough weapons to fuel a nationwide rebellion, and that clearing the former insurgent bastion of arms is holding up the return of civilians.
Most of Fallujah’s estimated 250,000 civilians left the central Iraq city ahead of the devastating Nov. 8 assault, and “it will be probably several more weeks” before significant numbers of them can return, said Lt. Col. Dan Wilson of 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.
“We are looking at a very dense city, of some 50,000 structures – each and every one of them with a potential weapons cache hidden inside,” he said.
Without providing details, Wilson called the amount of arms uncovered in Fallujah “stunning.”
“The amount of weapons was in no way just to protect a city,” said Maj. Jim West, a Marine intelligence officer. “There was enough to mount an insurgency across the country.”
A huge store of weapons and explosives was found at the mosque of Abdullah al-Janabi, a Muslim cleric and insurgent leader, according to a report on The New York Times’ Web site. Al-Janabi is thought to have fled the city.
The Times said the mosque compound in a residential area had sheds stacked with TNT, mortar shells, bombs, guns, rocket-propelled grenades and ammunition. A naval mine was in the street outside, it added.
Marines clearing houses in Fallujah have found Kalashnikov rifles, ammunition, rocket-propelled grenades, artillery shells and heavy-caliber cannons – with weapons caches often marked by a brick hanging by a string on homes’ outside walls.
West said U.S. forces turned up a “cook book” with instructions on using mercury nitrate and silver nitrate and descriptions of nerve agents. He didn’t elaborate.
Also in Iraq:
* An audiotape attributed to Iraq’s most feared terrorist lashed out Wednesday at Sunni Muslim clerics for not speaking out against U.S. attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the tape, Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi condemned the “silence” of Muslim religious figures, saying they have “let us down in the darkest circumstances.”
* A U.S. general in charge of training Iraqi troops said U.S. and Iraqi forces would step up counterinsurgency operations in the run-up to the Jan. 30 national elections.
* A group of mostly Sunni politicians plan to meet Friday to discuss whether they should urge the government to postpone the election for three or four months because of the security situation. Those planning to attend include representatives of the Iraqi Islamic party, the National Democratic Party, the Iraqi Communist Party, and the two major Kurdish parties.
* Five more bodies were found Wednesday in the northern city of Mosul, where insurgents have been targeting Iraqi police and soldiers for assassination, making a total of 20 in the past week, the military said.
* A delegation from the International Red Cross visited former leader Saddam Hussein Wednesday to check on his condition in detention, a spokesman said Wednesday.
Associated Press
A shopkeeper tells customers how to fill out voter registration forms Wednesday in Baghdad, Iraq. Iraq’s electoral commission on Sunday set national elections for Jan. 30.
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