IRAQ: American troops have found a vast network of bunkers beneath the Iraqi desert which insurgents used as a base, complete with kitchen and air-conditioning, the US military said at the weekend.
The largest complex, measuring 166 by 269 metres, was carved from an old rock quarry near Karma, in the restive province of Anbar, west of Baghdad.
It included a well-stocked larder, four furnished living spaces and rooms full of machine guns, mortars, rockets, black uniforms, masks, compasses, night-vision goggles and satellite telephones.
In a separate development the Iraqi government said the ousted president, Saddam Hussein, would be tried on 12 of a possible 500 charges, and the proceedings were likely to start within two months.
The US 2nd Marine Division, backed by Iraqi soldiers, has been sweeping through Anbar in an effort to disrupt the communications and supply lines of an insurgency that has claimed more than 820 lives in the past five weeks.
Last Thursday the troops spotted a lone building in the desert and inside it found a chest-style electric freezer. It hid the entrance to what a marine spokesman said was possibly the largest underground insurgent hideout to be found in the past two years.
Fresh food suggested recent use. There were showers and a functioning air-conditioner; in summer, temperatures can reach 54 degrees.
Spent cartridges on the surface revealed what appeared to be a firing range. Some 50 other weapons and ammunition caches have been found in Anbar in the past three days, said a US spokesman.
The bunkers gave an insight into the logistics of using remote areas to group fighters and equipment for attacks.
Since the fall of Falluja last November, insurgents have relied on scattered bases to sustain a campaign of assassination, car bombs and suicide attacks.
US and Iraqi forces claimed another success in the northern city of Mosul when, after a brief battle, they captured Mullah Mahdi, nicknamed the Prince of Princes, with five other suspected members of Ansar al-Sunna, a group which has claimed responsibility for some of the bloodiest bombings.
And yesterday the government said that police had arrested a key aide to the leader of the Mosul branch of the al-Qaeda in Iraq terrorist group.
Meanwhile, to counter frustration over the unabated violence, the government has signalled its desire to put Saddam on trial within two months.
The former dictator will be charged with a range of crimes, including some related to the gassing of the Kurdish town of Halabja in 1988, the invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and the suppression of uprisings. - (Guardian service)