A local scavenger driving a pickup truck was stopped by a British checkpoint near Basrah, who found an empty ammo carrier among his other finds.

The driver showed the British troops where he found the container, an abandoned army base with the biggest weapons find of the war. The arsenal stored in at least seven buildings on the compound included hundreds of small arms, grenade launchers and machine guns, as well as crates of tank shells and mortars, stacked floor-to-ceiling in several cement buildings.