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WASHINGTON, June 5, 2005 – A Task Force Liberty soldier was killed when an improvised explosive device detonated near a vehicle patrol in Iraq's Kirkuk province at about 4 p.m. today, military officials in Baghdad reported.
The soldier was taken to a coalition medical facility, but died there, officials said. The soldier's name is being withheld pending notification of next of kin. Elsewhere in Iraq today, Marines, sailors and soldiers assigned to Regimental Combat Team 8 destroyed a large weapons cache and bunker system in Karmah, north of Fallujah. Iraqi security forces and coalition forces discovered the large cache June 2, while conducting operations in the area. The site was an old rock quarry about 170 meters wide by 275 meters long that contained an underground bunker. Within the various rooms of the facility were four fully furnished living spaces, a kitchen with fresh food, two shower facilities and a working air conditioner. More than 50 weapons and munitions caches have been discovered in the last four days, officials said, including about a dozen within a five-mile radius of the rock quarry. A joint Navy and Marine Corps explosive ordnance disposal team from Combat Logistics Battalion 8, 2nd Force Service Support Group, helped to identify and inventory all the items found in the cache before destroying it, using roughly 300 pounds of plastic explosives. The bunker and weapons cache were destroyed simultaneously. Large quantities of plastic explosives, mortar and artillery rounds were discovered in these cache sites. Terrorists commonly use the explosives in making roadside and car bombs, officials said. (Compiled from Multinational Force Iraq news releases.)
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