DAR AL HARB/ISLAM - U.S.A./IRAQ/IRAN: IRAQI "GANG SMUGGLING IRANIAN BOMBS"

US troops seize ‘gang smuggling Iran bombs’

BAGHDAD: US forces yesterday detained four members of a gang suspected of smuggling armour-piercing bombs from Iran to Iraq and sending back militants for “terrorist training”, the military said.

A statement from US command in Iraq said the suspects were picked up in an early morning raid on the east Baghdad suburb of Sadr City, a known stronghold of radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army militia.

“The individuals targeted during the raid are suspected members of a secret cell terrorist network known for facilitating the transport of weapons and explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, from Iran to Iraq,” it said.

The EFP is a form of roadside bomb in which the detonation of an explosive charge inside a steel tube causes a copper disc to deform into a fist-sized chunk of supersonic molten metal that can scythe through armoured vehicles.

American commanders say the design is exclusively Iranian and in January alleged that at least 170 US troops had been killed by EFPs since May 2004.

The statement also said that the gang had sent “militants from Iraq to Iran for terrorist training.”

“Intelligence reports also indicate the secret cell has ties to a kidnapping network that conducts attacks within Iraq,” it added.

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