Abi Sayda mayor arrested after arms discovered- U.S. army

BAGHDAD, Sept. 20 (Iraqi News) – Diala’s Abi Sayda district chief was arrested after security forces had found a weapons cache in his house, the U.S. army said on Saturday. “Muqdadiyah Special Weapons and Tactics team arrested the mayor of Abi Sayda (Mohammed Majeed al-Sareewi) after they discovered a weapons cache at his orchard house Sept. 19 in the Diyala province,” read a U.S. army statement received by IraqiNews.com – Voices of Iraq – (Iraqi News). “Among items found were one improvised claymore, one rocket-propelled grenade launcher, one 60 mm mortar tube, one 60 mm mortar tripod, one 2.75-inch rocket, one rocket-propelled grenade round, two 120 mm high-explosive mortar rounds, 12 60 mm high-explosive mortar rounds, two 81 mm high-explosive mortar rounds, two homemade bombs, 35 non-electric detonators, five 60 mm mortar fuses, three electric detonators, one stick of C4, two fragmentation grenades, three AK-47 barrels, two machine gun barrels and 10 copper explosively formed penetrators,” according to the statement. On Friday, an Iraqi security source said that a joint U.S.-Iraqi force arrested a district chief in Diala province and one of his escorts during a search raid on his house. Diala province, a mix of Sunnis and Shiites, extends to the northeast of Baghdad as far as the Iranian border. Its capital is Baaquba, 57 km northeast of Baghdad. It covers an area of 17,685 square kilometers (6,828 sq mi). In January 2008 Operation Phantom Phoenix was launched in an attempt to eradicate the remnants of al-Qaeda network following the Diala province campaign between 2006 and 2007. Later on, the Iraqi security forces had launched a wide-scale security campaign in Diala province. The operation, codenamed Bashaer al-Kheir (Promise of Good), is aimed at tracking down members of al-Qaeda network in Diala, Iraq’s most restive city, after the armed group lost its strongholds in the western Iraq predominantly Sunni province of al-Anbar, where tribesmen fought its members and flushed them out of the city. A large portion of the province is drained by the Diala River, a major tributary of the Tigris. Because of its proximity to two major sources of water, Diala’s main industry is agriculture, primarily dates grown in large Date Palm groves. It is also recognized as the orange capital of the Middle East. SS (S) 1