1550 ROCKETS CAPTURED

US troops pursuing two wounded assailants in the Baghdad area found two trucks loaded with hundreds of rockets and a detonator that indicated they were being used to make a bomb, according to the Pentagon.

General Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, disclosed the find at a news conference here, telling reporters 14 people were detained in the neighbourhood where the trucks were found Wednesday.

US snipers wounded two people who were preparing to fire a mortar, and then followed them to a compound, he said.

"A search of that compound and the neighbourhood resulted in finding those individuals along with 12 other Iraqis, and while patrolling these side streets they found two trucks," he said.

"One was filled with 800 57mm rockets and the other truck with 750 rockets," he said.

"And as they attempted to push further, an apparent detonating device was found as well."

"The explosives ordnance teams diagnosed these rockets as a potential bomb that were in a pre-assembly state," he said.