From May to August Iraqi Security Forces, including National Police units, confiscated a mountain of weaponry in northeastern Baghdad from gunmen of anti-American cleric Moqtada Sadr's Mehdi Army and Iranian-influenced Special Group cells, as well as remnant cells of the al-Qaida in Iraq terrorist organization.

The Iraqi take, according to data from the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division in northeastern Baghdad: 5,471 rifles; 613 artillery rounds; 2,623 mortar rounds; 320 rockets; 991 rocket-propelled grenades; 342 improvised explosive devices; 289 fully assembled explosively formed penetrators; and 349 EFP bodies and plates.

U.S. forces in Adhamiya district's various sectors and in southern Sadr City in August alone seized 190 mortar rounds of various sizes, 49 rockets of various sizes, 35 EFPs still in their manufacturing packaging, and dozens of components -- such as mortar and rocket tubes, fuses and boosters.

Thirty-five boxes and numerous packets of 1/4-inch and 1/2-inch ball bearings used in anti-personnel explosive devices were also found, as well as boxes of rifle munitions, 2,500 loose rounds of 7.62mm bullets, and steel or copper disks, plates, blasting caps and other IED components.

EFPs are particularly deadly explosive devices that U.S. forces say come from Iran but the Iranian government denies supplying Shiite militias. Basically, an explosively formed penetrator is a shaped charge specifically designed to penetrate the protective armor of tanks, personnel carriers and other vehicles and then shred the vehicle's inhabitants with shrapnel.

The number of mortar and rocket rounds, such as 107mm rockets, is important especially in the Sadr City area. Its northern area is a densely packed (estimated population 2.2 million) slum of narrow streets and apartment buildings with little or no open spaces or clear horizons, which makes the firing of mortars and rockets difficult if not impossible. Southern Sadr City was used for that in April and May when the Mehdi Army and Special Groups rained terror on Baghdad's International Zone after Sadr lifted an earlier cease-fire with the central government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

That sector is now firmly under the control of U.S. and Iraqi forces, and unfettered access to it has been blocked off by a concrete barrier extending about 3 miles. The northern sector is now occupied by Iraqi army battalions that successfully put down Mehdi and other Shiite militias in the southern city of Basra in April.

Artillery shells, mortar and rocket rounds are instead broken down and used in improvised explosive devices that are transported outside its confines and planted to kill U.S. or Iraqi troops.

Al-Qaida terrorists in more open parts of the Adhamiya district use shells for improvised explosive devices as well as VBIEDS -- vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices.

(Next: The human dimension that accompanies the military operations)

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