Iraqi Tips Lead To IED And Explosives Find
Camp Striker, Iraq
The amount and the quality of the tips and intelligence provided by local citizens in Iraq have increased sharply. Much of this is due to villagers beginning to take pride in their communities, and the realization that Saddam is gone, and that they have a chance for freedom, peace and security.
In two other successful raids resulting from citizen tips, Iraqi Army Soldiers from the Rakkasan Platoon struck swiftly in Qarghuli and Shubayshen. Working jointly with Coalition soldiers from the 101st Airborne Air Assault team, tens of rockets, rocket motors, and rocket-propelled grenades were found.
In a third raid, a man was noticed acting strangely. He was thought to be an upstanding citizen, but he was acting out of character, and this was noticed by 1st Lieutenant Keenan Ellison, Leader of 3rd Platoon, Company D, and 3-187th Infantry. Lieutenant Ellison went up to the man to speak to him.
After a couple of hours, the interview had resulted in several different individuals being arrested, and a large amount of bomb making materials and explosive were discovered. One of the locations discovered was a hiding place in the floor of a chicken coop. The floor was loose soil, like sawdust almost.
When the floor was dug through, a large cache of weapons was found. Twenty seven 81mm mortar rounds, sixty six RPG rockets, thirty RPG propellant rods, various Bulgarian Rockets, Four RPG launchers, over twenty pounds of homemade bombs and explosive materials, and a host of other bombmaking and explosive material.
So much was unearthed they had to radio to base for a second vehicle to haul it all back to the base.
