FALLUJAH, Iraq – U.S. Marines have found beheading chambers, bomb-making factories and even one Iraqi hostage as they swept through Fallujah – turning up hard evidence of the city’s role in the insurgent campaign to drive American forces from Iraq.
Marines on Sunday showed off what they called a bomb-making factory, where insurgents prepared roadside explosives and car bombs that have killed hundreds of Iraqi civilians and U.S. troops.
Wires, cellphones, handheld radios and a plastic-foam box packed with C4 plastic explosives sat in the dark building down an alley, along with three masks reading: “There is only one god, Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger.”
“It’s all significant because this is not the kind of stuff an average household has,” said Lt. Kevin Kimner, 25, of Cincinnati assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines. “This is better than Radio Shack.”
So far U.S. troops have only found two hostages, one Iraqi and one Syrian. Marines last week found the Iraqi in a room chained to the wall, shackled hand and foot in front of a video camera. The floor was covered with blood.
The rescued Syrian was the driver for two French journalists, Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, missing since August. The journalists have not been found.
A Marine officer, without giving details, said he found signs that at least one foreign hostage was beheaded in that room.
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