Weapons cache unearthed in Fallujah mosque

US and Iraqi forces in Fallujah have uncovered the largest-yet weapons cache in the one-time rebel bastion, finding the stockpile inside a mosque led by a key insurgent leader.

Troops found small arms, artillery shells, heavy machine guns, and anti-tank mines on Wednesday inside the Saad Abi Bin Waqas Mosque in central Fallujah, where Sunni rebel leader and imam Abdullah al-Janabi often spoke, the US military said.

The military, which didn’t provide specific numbers of weapons found, called the discovery the “largest weapons cache to date in the city of Fallujah”.

Troops also found what may be a mobile bomb-making factory housed in a truck as well as mortar systems, rocket-propelled grenades, launchers, recoilless rifles and parts of surface to air weapons systems elsewhere in the mosque compound, the statement said.

The troops also found “documents that detailed insurgent interrogations of recent kidnap victims”, the statement said, without elaborating.

Al-Janabi headed the Mujahedeen Shura Council in Fallujah.

Iraqi leaders have said that al-Janabi, along with other key insurgents leaders such as Omar Hadid and Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, managed to escape from the city.