5 May NY Times - U.S. Forces Break Up Arms Smuggling Ring in Baghdad by Alissa Rubin.

American soldiers broke up a weapons smuggling ring on Friday in Baghdad, detaining 16 men who were accused of procuring powerful, armor-piercing bombs and other arms from Iran, the American military said.

The operation, in Sadr City, the heavily Shiite neighborhood that has at times been a center of resistance to the Americans, was one in a series of raids recently aimed at stopping the flow into Iraq of armor-piercing bombs, known as explosively formed projectiles, or E.F.P.’s, said Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a spokesman for the military. “We’re dismantling the networks link by link, and one link leads us to another,” he said.

But he acknowledged that there were plenty of insurgents willing to smuggle and place the bombs. The military’s hope is to reduce the number of successful attacks by arresting the most experienced of the smugglers and assemblers...