U.S. troops recover large arms caches near Baghdad

U.S. soldiers found and destroyed 20 tons of explosives just north of Baghdad in the last two days, the military reported Saturday.

The ordnance, discovered in five caches west of Tarmiya, consisted mostly of the nitrogen-based explosive powder that is used in roadside bombs and car bombs, said Lt. Stephen Bomar of the Army’s Task Force Lightning. The group said it was the largest explosives cache recovered during its 15-month operation in Iraq.

The detonation of one of the caches left a 100-square-foot crater that was 30 feet deep. Bomar said no suspects had been killed or taken into custody in connection with the caches, and he declined to speculate on which insurgent or militia groups they might belong to.

In the northern city of Kirkuk, three Iraqi policemen were wounded in a roadside bombing Saturday, and six people were kidnapped by gunmen on the highway between Tikrit and Kirkuk. Two Iraqi soldiers were killed in a roadside explosion in Hawija, southwest of Kirkuk.

Near Hillah, south of Baghdad, gunmen killed a local bureaucrat, and in the capital a roadside bomb killed one municipal worker and injured two others.