Hussein’s Hometown Yields Arms

U.S. troops who raided a farm Saturday uncovered a weapons cache that included anti-aircraft missiles and a huge quantity of the type of explosives used to make homemade bombs that have killed American soldiers.

In the second raid in two days on the farm near the village of Al Auja, where ousted President Saddam Hussein was born, U.S. troops acting on a tip dug near a riverbank and found the weapons covered by reeds and straw, an officer said.

The cache held 23 Russian-made surface-to-air missiles, 1,000 pounds of plastic explosives, 115 rocket-propelled grenades with four launchers, a mortar and 40 mortar rounds, 1,300 blasting caps and 423 hand grenades.

“This is a significant discovery because everything we take out of the enemy’s hands can’t be used against us,” said Maj. Mike Rauhut, executive officer of the 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment.