The
New York Times today has an article by Robert F. Worth
entitled 'Marines in Falluja Find Rebel Leader's Arsenal' that is
surprisingly, for me, favorable in its treatment of the discovery
of
Abdullah Janabi['s], the insurgent leader of this
city's mujahedeen council, and his bomb-laden mosque, where they
found a massive supply of weapons that dwarfed any of the hundreds
of caches yet found . . .
As they comb through the city's houses, search teams of American
and Iraqi soldiers have discovered much larger supplies of weapons
than they expected, and the need to detonate them safely could
delay initial reconstruction efforts under way here, officials
said. Explosions can be heard throughout the day as munitions teams
detonate the weapons in a quarry north of the city, but some are
too dangerous and must be blown up in
place. . . .
Just inside the mosque compound was an aluminum shed full of
mortars and TNT. Like many weapons depots in Falluja, it had been
wired to explode, and had to be carefully dismantled by an American
explosives team.
I haven't seen any interviews of the disposal team members. That
would be interesting.
Also found in the house were files showing the names of
people who had been tortured and executed for cooperating with the
Americans and their
allies, . . ..
There were also more than 500 letters from the families of
insurgents who had been killed or wounded, asking for compensation
from Mr. Janabi . . .
Valuable intelligence that.
The
Pelican
File aggregates articles from Worth.