Explosives in a children's candy factory?
Nothing to see here:
BAGHDAD - U.S. and Iraqi forces on Tuesday raided a lollipop factory being used to make bombs, finding boxes of explosives and two tons of fertilizer in the basement of the facility in northern Iraq, an Iraqi officer said.
The entry room to the al-Arij factory was booby-trapped and the building was empty because the workers fled after apparently being tipped off to the raid, according to the officer, army commander Brig. Gen. Nour al-Din Hussein. He said an anti-aircraft gun was hidden on the roof.
Hussein, commander of Iraq’s 4th Brigade, said the Christian owner of the lollipop factory was killed three years ago. He said the facility was currently rented to people whom police refused to identify for security reasons.
The troops, who found candy boxes filled with explosives, oxygen cylinders and two tons of fertilizer in the basement, spent three hours destroying the payload in controlled blasts in an industrial area of Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad. Bodies are often found in the area, located in the city’s eastern section. The U.S. military said it was looking into the report.
The discovery illustrated the challenges faced by U.S. and Iraqi troops trying to stop the unrelenting violence even as militants consistently find new ways to thwart stepped-up security measures.
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