Photo By Sgt. Paul Ondik | 1st Lt. Edward Stoltenberg, executive officer for Company D, 3rd Battalion, 67th...... read more read more
BAGHDAD - The 506th Regimental Combat Team discovered a huge weapons cache Wednesday in the New Baghdad neighborhood of eastern Baghdad.
During Operation Roll tide, a combined effort between elements from 6th Battalion, 2nd Brigade Iraqi National Police, and Soldiers from Company D, 3rd Battalion, 67th Armored Regiment, 4th Infantry Division, uncovered a huge weapons cache of land mines, rockets, explosives, and documents in a house.
In one home the unit found over 140 mines, 58 blocks of C4 explosives, 18 rockets, and almost 40 mortars, as well as manuals and equipment to convert these munitions into deadly improvised-explosive devices.
Operation Roll Tide was partially in response to anti-Iraqi forces attacking Forward Operating Base Rustamiyah with rockets. An intelligence-based operation which stressed combined planning and execution with Iraqi Security Forces, Operation Roll Tide focused on countering AIF indirect fire capabilities.
During the collection of intelligence, 3-67 Armor found information which led them to an area where the cache was found.
"We took the information found at the site, and that was what led us to this house," said 1st Lt. Edward Stoltenberg, executive officer, Co. D; his room was hit in the rocket attack. Three additional areas were also searched that evening, but it was at the first site where 3-67 hit the jackpot.
"We found a woman when we entered the building," said Stoltenberg, a native of Portsmouth, RI. "She immediately fled the house. Red platoon found her at one of her relative's houses nearby."
The Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment and members of the 519th Military Police responded to the site as well.
"What we do is sensitive site exploitation," said Spc. Randi Lee May, a nuclear, biological and chemical specialist with the BSTB. "We come out here to help pick up evidence. We're on what they call "on-call" status. If they can't handle it on their own, then we come out," May, of Fishersville, Va., said. Their team is a combination of identification of explosive weapons and NBC specialists, he said.
In this particular case, the cache was huge, but the Explosive Ordinance Disposal team on the scene was able to handle it and destroyed the weapons cache.
BSTB was not idle though. They, along with members of the 519th MPs and 6-2 Iraqi national police were tasked with providing security at the end of the street, where an angry crowd of Iraqi citizens had begun to chant anti-American slogans due primarily to dissatisfaction with Coalition Forces detaining a female.
The crowd soon swelled into hundreds of increasingly aggressive locals, separated from the Soldiers and the Iraqi police officers only by a single coil of concertina wire. The female detainee was handed over to the 6-2 Iraqi national police after the Soldiers removed the munitions from the cache site. With the assistance of an Imam and other civic leaders, the tense situation was diffused without violence.
| Date Taken: | 05.16.2006 |
| Date Posted: | 05.16.2006 14:11 |
| Story ID: | 6407 |
| Location: | BAGHDAD, IQ |
| Web Views: | 427 |
| Downloads: | 54 |
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