ABU GHRAIB - The bombers had done their work well, and the bus found at a farm west of Baghdad appeared quite normal. But this one had been modified by Al-Qaeda to transport death. The Abu Ghraib farmstead, 20 kilometers from the Iraqi capital, had been abandoned by its Shiite owners amid the wave of sectarian violence that swept through the country in 2006 and 2007.

That was when Sunni insurgents from Al-Qaeda moved in and set up their bomb factory, by all appearances a professional operation in which attention to detail was paramount. When Iraqi security forces swooped down on the farm, they uncovered everything the bombers required to transform the ordinary into the horrific.

In addition to explosives everywhere they found electrical wiring, portable telephones, batteries-everyday items that could, in the wrong hands, wreak havoc. "Their workshop contained generators and oxyacetylene equipment, everything they needed to transform a vehicle," said General Abdel Karim Al-Shuwaili, the army's security chief in the sector west of Baghdad that includes Abu Ghraib. "But it was discovered before they could use it in the area.

Even professional coachbuilders would have been impressed by the standards of work shown by the insurgents. The vehicle was relatively new and in good condition. But it had been stripped to the bone: seats, carpets and even parts of the frame had been removed to make space for explosives. Every empty area had been stuffed with them-two and a half tons in all-before the jihadists carefully rebuilt the bus, panel by panel and seat by seat, the general said.

Sheets of metal lay around, waiting to be shaped to size. The fuel tank had been divided into two sections, its capacity reduced from 300 liters to just 50 so they could cram in yet more explosives. "The hiding places had been intelligently and meticulously prepared," Shuwaili said. "Such are the methods of Al-Qaeda. Everything done in a way so it becomes harder to find. "If this bus had been filled with its load and then detonated in a crowded area of Baghdad, the carnage and the damage would have been ho
rrendous.

When soldiers raided the farm, they also uncovered a cache of automatic rifles and a stock of magnetic bombs concealed in plastic barrels and then buried. Such devices, known as sticky bombs, are attached to a vehicle and primed to explode when it begins to move. The Abu Ghraib bomb factory had been empty of people when the raid was launched, but four people discovered in the area were detained. One of them had been wanted for the past three years.

Fresh food found in the farmhouse kitchen was an indication that the bomb-makers had fled just before the troops arrived. "Twelve explosives belts were found at Abu Ghraib a month ago, in different operations," Shuwaili said, adding that two suicide bombers had been killed in recent weeks as they approached roadblocks. He said the insurgents withdrew to regroup in agricultural areas where there were a number of abandoned buildings to choose from, after they were ejected from the capital itself.

In the Iraqi military, confidence remains high that Al-Qaeda will be defeated. "We are engaged in a fight against terrorism which is currently on the decline, and our work is nearly done," said Colonel Rahim Kazem Rissen, head of the Abu Ghraib Brigade, whose men raided the farm after a tip-off. The last major insurgent attack in the Baghdad area was on August 19, nearly two months ago. On that day, two suicide truck bombers detonated their deadly payloads-hidden inside water tanks-outside the foreign and finance ministries, killing 95 people and wounding more than 600. - AFP