Explosives seized in Samarra

SALAH AL-DIN / IraqiNews.com: A joint force on Sunday seized a large amount of explosives west of the city of Samarra, a source from Salah al-Din’s police department said. “A force from the Samarra police and U.S. troops launched a wide-scale search campaign in the area of al-Khuzaimi, (30 km) west of Samarra, where it seized one and quarter tons of explosive powder, 127 kg of TNT and 307 Austrian-made cannon shells,” Muthanna Shakir Mahmoud, the commander of the Samarra police department’s special forces squad, told IraqiNews.com news agency. “The U.S. forces destroyed the explosives in their place,” he said. Samarra lies 120 km north of the Iraqi capital. “The operation was conducted based on intelligence reports in the area, which used to be a stronghold of al-Qaeda network in the province of Salah al-Din,” (175 km) north of Baghdad, Mahmoud added. AmR (P)/SR 1