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U.S. finds bomb factory

BAGHDAD - U.S. Army officers said Monday that they had discovered a factory for assembling sophisticated roadside bombs from Iranian-made components - the first such facility uncovered in Iraq.

The officers, who displayed weapons for reporters at a U.S. base in Baghdad, said the find provides more evidence that the Iranians are providing weapons used to kill Americans. They include EFPs - explosively formed projectiles - that fire a slug of molten metal capable of penetrating armored vehicles and have been blamed for killing more than 170 U.S. and coalition soldiers since 2004.

The display was the latest in a series presented by the U.S. military to bolster its allegation that Iranian weapons are being supplied to Shiite militias. Iran has denied the allegation, and some private defense analysts say Iranian weaponry is widely available on international arms markets.

U.S. ordnance experts maintain that the workmanship on component parts is uniquely Iranian and too high in quality to have been copied by Iraqi extremists without access to advanced machinery.

Military officials said the cache was the largest of its kind to be found north of Baghdad.

"This is a significant amount," said Capt. Clayton Combs, the commander of the company that found the cache in the volatile Diyala province on Saturday. "Before we have found one or two EFPs at the most and those are usually at the site of deployment. This is the first cache ...that has actually been found as far as a production facility."

[Last modified February 27, 2007, 01:04:05]