British troops find new Afghan arms cache

British-led coalition forces have made another major weapons discovery in an operation to hunt down al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters…

British-led coalition forces have made another major weapons discovery in an operation to hunt down al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters in eastern Afghanistan.

An army spokesman said the cache had been discovered around four kilometres south of a cave complex where British troops discovered 20 truckloads of ammunition and weaponry two days earlier.

Bomb disposal experts blew most of that cache up and handed over the rest to the Afghan interim administration.

The newly discovered arms dump contained rockets, mortar rounds and boxes of heavy-machine-gun ammunition.

READ MORE

"This cache was destroyed this morning by a bomb disposal team," the spokesman said. "The thing that alerted us most about this cache was its position. It appeared to be hastily positioned, literally underneath a bush, which I would suggest would make it either a ready-use cache or something that someone ditched while they were moving rapidly away."

The British-led Operation Snipe entered its 15th day today. Around 80 to 85 per cent of the target area in southeastern Afghanistan has now been covered by the 1,000 troops taking part.

There has been no contact with opposition fighters.

AFP