US Soldiers Find Explosives-Rigged School in Iraq

Thu May 3, 6:28 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - US soldiers stumbled on a plot to turn a girls school in
Iraq' into an "absolute death trap" by rigging it with explosives while it was under construction, a US military spokesman said Thursday.
"It was truly just an incredibly ugly, dirty kind of vicious killing that would have gone on here by Al-Qaeda," Major General William Caldwell said in an interview with CNN.
Caldwell said US soldiers discovered the explosives this week when they spotted detonating wire across the street from the school and followed it to its source inside the building.
The general said it was "obviously a sophisticated premeditated attempt to inflict just massive casualties on our most innocent victims -- young children, girls in this case."
"We found artillery shells that were being literally built into the ceiling. We found artillery shells again all hooked up with wires being built into the floors.
"We found propane tanks, two very large propane tanks built into the floors under the stair wells.
"Somebody had clearly taken and planned to take this school, a place of learning for these young children and turn it into an absolute death trap," he said.
Pentagon' officials said they had no information about the plot.
CNN identified the school as the Huda Girls School, which was under construction in the town of Tarmiya, north of Baghdad. Caldwell said the school was in a predominantly Shiite area.
Caldwell said the Iraqi contractors who were building the school were being investigated.
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