Now might be a good time <$NoAd$>for a follow-up from Rick Jervis of the Chicago Tribune.
Back on September 30th, he wrote a piece about the lawlessness in the Iraqi town of Latifiyah, what the US military calls the “IED [or ‘improvised explosive device’] capital of Iraq.”
Down a ways into the story, in the process of explaining all the violence and bombings and explosions, Jervis writes …
The insurgents probably are using weapons and ammunition looted from the nearby Qa-Qaa complex, a 3-mile by 3-mile weapons-storage facility about 25 miles southwest of Baghdad, said Maj. Brian Neil, operations officer for the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, which initially patrolled the area.
The facility was bombed during last year’s invasion and then left unguarded, Neil said. “There’s definitely no shortage of weapons around here,” he said.
From the context of the piece it sounds like he may be talking about mortar shells and artillery rounds rather than the RDX and HMX from al Qaqaa that everyone’s now talking about.
Still, this sounds like something we should know more about.
[ed. note: thanks to TPM reader TH for having the eagle eye.]
